Tallahassee, FL.- October 20,2012
Lawyers for a convicted mass killer in Florida are trying to get a federal judge to block his pending execution.
Attorneys for John Errol Ferguson on Friday filed an emergency motion in Miami federal court to stay Tuesday's execution.
The 64-year-old Ferguson was convicted of killing eight people including six who died execution-style in 1977 in Carol City, which at the time was the worst mass slaying in Miami-Dade County history.
The state Supreme Court this week upheld findings by a team of psychiatrists appointed by Gov. Rick Scott that Ferguson is legally competent to be executed even though he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.
His lawyers say Ferguson lacks rational understanding and that he suffers from delusions that he's the "prince of God."
