Death Row Inmate May Have Faked Mental Illness to Avoid Execution

HOUSTON, TX —Gerald Eldridge was faking it the whole time, at least that's the ruling of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Jan. 4, 1993, Eldridge kicked down the door to his ex-girlfriend's apartment. He shot her 9-year-old daughter between the eyes.

He tried to shoot his own son in the head, but the kid was too quick. The boy moved his head and the bullet wound up buried in his shoulder.

Eldridge gunned down the new boyfriend and chased his ex when she ran out the door. He shot her as she ran for help.

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At his 1994 trial, Eldridge was convicted and sentenced to death after about 30 minutes of jury deliberation. In 2007, Eldridge's attorneys began pushing to get him classified as mentally retarded so he couldn't be executed.

The problem is that the court's definition of mental retardation is based on I.Q., and I.Q. tests are notoriously unreliable. Eldridge has been tested since childhood and the various tests show that his I.Q. ranges from 61 to 110, anything less than 70 is considered retarded and anything over 120 is considered gifted.

In 2009, Eldridge's appeal was denied by the 5th Circuit. However, just hours before he was set to get the needle a U.S. District Judge halted the execution.

Judge Lee Rosenthal decided that more testing needed to be done to see if Eldridge was too crazy to kill. Eldridge went to a prison psychiatric hospital for six months for evaluation and oversight, while there the doctors put him on anti-psychotics.

After he got out of the hospital, Eldridge was given a prison shrink who determined that he suffered from "looseness of association." Eldridge's psychiatrist testified that his client was too incompetent to stand trial at a 2012 hearing.

The stat's attorney disagreed and introduced at least 10 evaluations, some of which dated back to 1993, that determined Eldridge was malingering.

Some of the reports stated that Eldridge had some pretty intense hallucinations — he claims to have seen spaceships and monsters and heard voices. Other reports found Eldridge to lucid , goal-oriented and cooperative.

At the hearing, Rosenthal heard testimony from four mental health experts, two from the defense and two from the state. Some of the experts said that Eldridge was mentally ill, others said that there was more evidence that he wasn't and was faking it to keep himself alive.

The judge ruled that Eldridge was faking it, his attorneys appealed to the 5th Circuit.

On Monday, Aug. 29, a three judge panel from the 5th Circuit decided that Eldridge was malingering. He can try and take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court now, but there is no guarantee that the nine men and women in Washington will hear his case.

Image via Ken Piorkowski used under a Creative Commons license.