Last week, we brought you a letter from Ohio Death Row inmate Abdul Awkal. He was scheduled to die earlier this month for the 1992 murders of his wife and brother-in-law. That execution date was postponed two weeks in order to mentally evaluate Awkal. Today, a judge ruled that he is not mentally competent to be executed.

Awkal still needs to be issued a formal stay of execution, but one assume that that will happen after today's ruling. And unless the governor of Ohio commutes his sentence to life in prison, he will continue to receive execution dates (there is also the possibility that Awkal could be forcibly medicated, then ruled competent and executed). But as it stands now, he is a mentally unfit man. From Judge Stuart Friedman's ruling—click to enlarge:



Previously
 Letters From Death Row: Abdul Awkal, Who Was Supposed to Die Last Week

[Thanks to Reuters' Kim Palmer for forwarding the ruling to us.]