[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALABAMA

[Rick Halperin]

May 12



ALABAMA----stay of impending execution

Alabama Delays Execution of Cop Killer Vernon Madison by Lethal Injection


A federal appeals court has delayed the execution of an Alabama inmate, saying 
there should be more time to review his claim that he is no longer competent 
because of strokes and dementia.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the stay Thursday morning, about 
seven hours ahead of when Vernon Madison was scheduled to die by lethal 
injection.

Madison was convicted in the 1985 killing Mobile police Officer Julius Schulte. 
Schulte had responded to a domestic call involving Madison. Prosecutors said 
Madison crept up and shot Schulte in the back of the head as he sat in his 
police car. Madison's attorneys had argued that he no longer had a rational 
understanding of his impending execution. The court said it will hold oral 
arguments on Madison's competency in June.

A circuit court last month ruled Madison was competent to be executed despite a 
decline in his cognitive abilities after a stroke.

"Over the course of the past year, Mr. Madison has suffered from multiple 
strokes that have resulted in significant cognitive decline, suffers from a 
major vascular neurocognitive disorder, or vascular dementia, and does not 
rationally understand why the State of Alabama is attempting to execute him," 
attorneys for Madison previously wrote.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it violates the constitutional ban on 
cruel and unusual punishment to execute prisoners who lack a rational 
understanding that they are about to be executed and why.

Madison's attorneys argued a lower court erred and did not fully consider the 
scope of his dementia when it ruled him competent. A defense expert found that 
Madison had an IQ of 72 and his attorneys said he is confused about the status 
of his case and has talked of going to live in Florida when he is released from 
prison.

The stay request came after an Alabama circuit judge ruled Madison was 
competent and a federal judge refused a stay.

Alabama has seen a lull in executions of more than 2 years because of 
difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs and litigation over the death 
penalty

(source: Associated Press)

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Alabama leads nation in death row inmates per capita


Tonight Alabama will put to death 65-year-old Vernon Madison, a man who grew 
old awaiting his sentence for the 1985 slaying of police Officer Julius 
Schulte.

Madison's execution will leave 184 death row inmates in Alabama, highest number 
of inmates per capita in the nation.

19 states do not or no longer employ the death penalty. About half of the 
remaining 31 use it seldom and have few inmates awaiting execution.

Alabama leads nation

But even among the state's that regularly sentence violent criminals to death, 
Alabama stands apart.

Alabama houses nearly 4 inmates on death row for every 100,000 residents. 
That's 4 for every Tuscaloosa stadium's worth of Alabamians.

That's the equivalent of 7 or 8 death row inmates for the population of Mobile 
or Birmingham or Huntsville. That's more death row inmates per city than many 
places see per state.

Perhaps more surprising, when adjusting for population, an Alabamian is about 4 
times as likely as a Texan to end up on death row.

Much larger states like Texas and California have more inmates on death row, 
but none employ death row at the same rate as small Alabama.

Alabama puts people on death row at twice the rate of Florida, 3 times the rate 
of Oklahoma. Only Nevada comes close. And it's not that close.

See the breakdown by state below: Who is on death row

In Alabama, inmates on death row are nearly all men. That's 85 white males and 
92 black males. There are just 5 women on death row in Alabama -- 4 white women 
and 1 African-American woman.

Many cases span decades. 10 of the Alabama inmates, like Madison, have been 
awaiting execution since before 1990.

It's not that Alabama halted the use of the death sentence. Today's execution 
marks 8 under Gov. Robert Bentley. State records show 25 executions under 
former Gov. Bob Riley.

There have been 211 executions since 1929. About 72 % of those executed by 
Alabama were African-American males. The state has executed only 4 women.

Houston County leads Alabama

However, not every district attorney in Alabama is as likely to seek a death 
sentence. Certain counties within Alabama tend to see it far more often than 
others.

Adjust for total population shows that no county uses the death penalty more 
often than Houston County, home to Dothan in southeast Alabama.

That puts Houston County in rare territory in the United States. That means 
Houston imposes the death penalty more often than any other county in a state 
that imposes the death penalty more often than any other state in the nation.

(source: al.com)