[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALABAMA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 25




ALABAMA:

U.S. Supreme Court halts execution of Alabama man for 1985 murder
David Beasley


The U.S. Supreme Court halted the planned execution on Thursday of an Alabama 
man convicted of murdering a police officer in 1985 after attorneys petitioned 
to spare the man’s life, arguing that he had suffered several strokes that left 
him unable to remember the crime.

Vernon Madison, 67, has spent more than 3 decades on death row for killing 
Mobile police officer Julius Schulte.

In the appeal this week, Madison’s lawyers said he is not competent to be 
executed because he is legally blind, cannot walk without assistance and is 
unable to recall the murder or understand his punishment.

”His mind and body are failing,” lawyers wrote in the petition.

Alabama prison spokesman Bob Horton said the state will not execute Madison as 
planned because of the U.S. Supreme Court order.

“The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to 
Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is granted pending the 
disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari,” the Supreme Court said, 
without elaborating on the reason for its decision.

In 2016, the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that 
Madison was no longer legally eligible to be executed because of his memory 
loss.

But the U.S. Supreme Court in November reversed that decision, saying court 
precedent had not established “that a prisoner is incompetent to be executed 
because of a failure to remember his commission of the crime.”

Madison’s attorneys asked justices to reconsider the case. They said in their 
petition that the state failed to disclose that a court-appointed psychologist 
who evaluated Madison was addicted to narcotics and had been suspended from his 
practice for forging prescriptions, making his findings invalid.

Lawyers for Alabama argue that Madison’s own expert witness has testified that 
he understands what he was tried for and “the meaning of a death sentence.”

According to court records, Madison killed Schulte during a domestic dispute 
that Madison was having with his girlfriend.

Madison appeared to leave his girlfriend’s home after retrieving his 
belongings, but then crept up behind Schulte as he sat in his patrol car and 
shot him twice in the back of the head with a .32-caliber pistol.

Madison, who is black, was sentenced to death in 1994 in his third trial after 
his first two convictions were thrown out on appeal for racial discrimination 
in jury selection and other prosecutorial misconduct.

(source: Reuters)