Two UN human rights experts have urged [UN report] Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe [official website] to halt the planned execution of a man with psychological disabilities. William Morva, a US Hungarian national, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a hospital security guard and a Sheriff’s deputy in 2008. A court-appointed psychiatrist diagnosed Morva with delusional disorder and believes that he may have committed the murders due to delusions he was experiencing. According to the experts, Morva did not receive “reasonable accommodations” during his trial. Under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [materials] reasonable accommodation means “necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal basis with others of all human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Additionally, the jury was not informed about Morva’s condition. The two experts are asking authorities to “annul the death sentence against Mr. Morva and to re-try him in compliance with international standards related to due process and fair trial.”

Recently the death penalty has been a pressing issue across the country. Earlier this week Florida Governor Rick Scott scheduled [JURIST report] the execution of Mark Asay which will be the state’s first execution in nearly two years. The execution of death row inmates in Florida had been halted after their sentencing procedure was deemed unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. In June a federal appeals court reversed [JURIST report] a lower court decision and found Ohio’s execution protocol to be constitutional. In that same week a federal judge ordered [JURIST report] major changes to Arizona death penalty procedures due to prisoner complaints. Earlier in June the US Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] that psychiatric assistance must be provided for indigent defendants sentenced to the death penalty. In May the Delaware House of Representatives passed a bill [JURIST report] that would reinstate the death penalty. Florida’s new bill [JURIST report] declaring that the death penalty may only be imposed by a judge upon unanimous recommendation from the jury was signed into law in March. In January the US Supreme Court refused [JURIST report] to consider a challenge to Alabama’s death penalty system.