Execution of 2 mentally disabled prisoners in the US states

The US has executed two prisoners who were said to have suffered from mental disabilities. With these two executions, the number of executions carried out in the US since the beginning of 2025 has reached five.

James Dennis Ford, 64, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1999 for a 1997 murder in Charlotte, Florida.

Ford is the first prisoner executed in the state of Florida in 2025. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant for the prisoner in January.

Ford was executed at the Florida State Prison in Bradford County with a three-drug lethal injection protocol of the sedative etomidate and the paralytic rocuronium bromide, followed by potassium acetate to stop the heart. Concerns have been raised about the effectiveness of etomidate, which is not used in other states, and the potential for conscious suffering by the prisoner during the execution process.

Ford’s legal team submitted multiple appeals over the years, all of which were unsuccessful. Most of the appeals focused on their client’s intellectual disabilities. The final appeal to the US Supreme Court centered on Ford’s mental and developmental age. The attorneys claimed that at the time of the murder, Ford had the mental and developmental age of a 14-year-old, despite being 36 years old.

Richard Lee Tabler (left) and James Dennis Ford, (right)

The second prisoner to be executed recently in Texas is Richard Lee Tabler. In 2004, Tabler, then 46, was found guilty of murder and given the death penalty.

Tabler was injected with a single lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital in the execution chamber of the state penitentiary in Huntsville.

During the punishment phase of his trial, Tabler’s defense team presented mitigating evidence focusing on his troubled background and mental health issues. His mother and sister testified to his challenging upbringing, potential birth trauma and history of psychiatric treatment.

Meyer Proler, a clinical neurophysiologist, testified that Tabler had an abnormality in the left temporal lobe of his brain that caused problems with learning, planning, and evaluating the consequences of his actions.

A psychiatrist also testified that Tabler suffered from severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and borderline personality disorder, and had a history of head trauma that was said to have impaired his ability to rationally assess situations.
There are six more executions scheduled between now and March 20, including one in South Carolina on March 7, one in Texas March 13, and a four-day execution spree March 17-20, which will include two in Louisiana and one each in Arizona and Oklahoma.