A USA appeals court put on hold Thursday’s scheduled execution of a 65-year-old man convicted of murdering a police officer in 1985, ordering a review into his mental competency after his lawyers said he suffers from dementia due to a series of strokes.
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Madison was convicted in 1985 of murdering Julius Schulte of the Mobile Police Department.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s move to delay the execution was a split 4-4 decision.
Lawyers for the Equal Justice Initiative wrote that there are questions about the constitutionality of his death sentence since a judge rejected the jury’s recommendation of life imprisonment.
It is this last sentencing that his attorneys focused on for their filing Thursday to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that recent action by the justices suggests that his death sentence was unconstitutional. At Madison’s third trial, a jury recommended a life sentence for Madison, but a judge sentenced him to the death penalty.
Vernon Madison’s attorneys said the death sentence violates his Eighth Amendment right prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
EJI attorneys filed an additional motion with the Alabama Supreme Court in light of the Hurst case and another Alabama death penalty case under review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The attorney general’s office on Thursday afternoon asked the high court to vacate a stay of execution for Vernon Madison issued hours earlier by the 11th U.S. Court of Criminal Appeals.
“Mr Madison suffers from dementia, has no independent recollection of the offence he was convicted of and consequently does not have a rational understanding of why the state of Alabama is attempting to execute him”, attorneys with EJI wrote in the stay request. His attorneys argue that several strokes have diminished Madison’s mental capacity to the point that he no longer understands why the state wants to execute him. Schulte had responded to a domestic call involving Madison.
Attorneys for Madison had argued that he is not competent enough to be executed.
After the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the conservative wing of the Supreme Court could not reach the five votes it needed to overturn the stay.. They argued in court filings that he has an IQ of 72, does not independently recall facts of his case and has talked of moving to Florida because he believes he is going to be released from prison.
Madison was convicted in the 1985 killing of Julius Schulte, a Mobile policeman.
The appellate court said it will hear oral arguments in Madison’s competency in June. In a psychological evaluation, Madison had “difficulty processing information” and he “was unable to rephrase simple sentences”.
The State fared no better at a second trial in 1990, as the resulting conviction and death sentence were reversed on the grounds that prosecutors had obtained expert testimony based on illegal evidence.
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An inmate in Alabama named Christopher E. Brooks argued that Alabama’s death-sentencing system is “virtually identical” to the nullified Florida system, but the justices rejected his appeal and he was executed by lethal injection in January.
