Vernon Madison, 65, of Mobile in Alabama, shot police officer Julius Schulte twice in the head after the officer was called to a “domestic incident” involving a former girlfriend of Madison’s in April 1985.
Advertisement
U.S. District Court Judge Kristi K. DuBose denied the stay of execution Tuesday, saying Madison was competent to be executed.
The request came a week after a Mobile circuit trial ruled that Madison was competent and had a rationale understanding of his upcoming execution.
Vernon Madison, one of Alabama’s longest-serving death row inmates, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. (2300 GMT) at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
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. Prosecutors said Madison crept up and shot Schulte in the head as he sat in his police vehicle after responding to a call about a domestic dispute involving Madison. At Madison’s third trial, a jury recommended a life sentence for Madison, but a judge sentenced him to the death penalty. “Today, the Eleventh Circuit ordered a stay of Mr. Madison’s execution so that it could properly consider the claim that his execution would violate the constitution”. In 1990, Madison was convicted again, but the case was sent back to trial for improper testimony from an expert witness. “She also noted Madison’s reported response that”, my lawyers are supposed to be handling that”, when the warden came to read him the death warrant.
The U.S. Supreme Court has taken differing positions on Alabama death row cases since its Florida ruling. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tracie Todd concluded that Alabama’s death penalty was similar to Florida’s, which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in January.
Madison will become the second person executed after the state modified its lethal injection admixture more than two years ago and the state’s 58th execution since 1983, when Alabama resumed capital punishments following the federal ban.
Advertisement
The high court past year struck down Florida’s sentencing method because it gave the final decision to the trial judge instead of a jury. The judge overrode the jurors and sentenced Madison to death. The Alabama attorney general’s office has argued there are differences that make Alabama sentencing structure legal.
