A federal appeals court on Monday temporarily halted the execution of Miami killer Marshall Lee Gore, 49, about an hour before the death row inmate was set to die by lethal injection. Gore was found guilty of the March 1988 strangulation-and-stabbing murder of Lauderhill’s Robyn Novick and he was believed to have been involved in the kidnapping and killing of a Tennessee college student in Columbia County.
Even though Gore was temporarily spared, the court could quickly set a Thursday court date for his lawyers in the case to explore the possibility that Gore is insane; however, if the judge does not find him insane, Gore will be on death row again. The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that the execution of insane inmates is cruel and unusual punishment.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Atlanta, said it would try to settle the matter before July 1.
Gore’s claim that he cannot be executed because he is insane mirrors that of John Ferguson, a Miami mass killer who earned a stay of execution this October.
The same federal court rejected Ferguson’s appeal, but it took seven months for the judges to rule. A new execution date for Ferguson has not been set.
Unlike Ferguson, Gore has no significant history of being diagnosed for mental illness. A panel of psychiatrists, appointed last month by the governor to evaluate Gore before his execution, found that he was mentally sound.
For more information go to this Miami Herald link: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/24/3468141/miami-killer-to-be-executed-has.html#storylink=cpy
