But that still leaves the central question moot. Should mentally ill people be executed? Death obviously ends any hope of "correction," which is what prison systems mostly call themselves (but rarely do). It also costs taxpayers a lot of money.
Should they be sent to prison? If they are, there's always the danger of violent harm to other inmates. If they are sent to solitary to avoid that, many prisoners have said they'd rather be dead.
Even in a state psychiatric hospital -- if there was one -- there's the possibility of danger to other patients.
But in prison, or in hospital, there is some chance of personal improvement, however small.
These are just a few of the complex options facing lawyers and judges and friends of the court as they ponder the fate of a sick old man.
But it occurs to me they may be asking the wrong question. They want to know if Ferguson understands and appreciates what's happening to him NOW. But wouldn't a better test be whether or not he understood what was happening when he became a mass murderer?
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