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U.S. Supreme Court upholds stay of Ala. inmate's execution

Brian Lyman
Montgomery Advertiser

A federal appeals court Thursday stayed the execution of Vernon Madison, convicted of the 1985 murder of Mobile police officer Julius Schulte, to consider arguments that a series of strokes have rendered him incompetent to face his execution.

Vernon Madison (Alabama Department of Corrections, via AP, File)

The three-judge panel, citing a case that said a death row inmate "must have a rational understanding of the reason for his execution," wrote that Madison's attorneys argued in court that the state court had not considered his dementia related to stroke. Madison's attorneys argued the strokes have affected his memory, mental capacity and ability to understand his circumstances.If Madison were found to be incompetent, execution would violate Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment and his Fourteenth Amendment guarantees of equal protection.

"This is ... the first time that any state or federal court has had the opportunity to consider Madison’s claim that his execution is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment," the ruling stated. "This claim could not have been raised before Madison’s execution became imminent, and only the Alabama trial court and the district court have reviewed Madison’s claim."

The U.S. Supreme Court late Thursday rejected a request from the Alabama Attorney General's office to lift the stay. In a brief filed Thursday afternoon, the attorney general's office accused the appeals court of "an affront to Alabama’s judicial branch" and "an absolute abuse of discretion." Attorneys wrote the lower court had considered the evidence of dementia, and that the appeals court was restricted in what it could consider as grounds for incompetency.

"This Court does not countenance the insinuation of false legal theories that do not appear in the text of the state court’s ruling, yet the Eleventh Circuit explicitly granted a stay based on Madison’s claim that the state court’s decision 'failed to consider evidence of his dementia and related impairments," the filing stated. "This finding cannot be supported on a fair reading of the state court decision, which indicated that the court considered all of the evidence presented."

Attorneys for the Equal Justice Initiative, representing Madison and responding to the state's filing, repeated their argument that the Mobile court's definition of incompetency was too restrictive.

"The state court’s decision was contrary to and an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law and an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented at the competency proceeding," the filing said.

The nation's high court split 4-4 on the state's request; Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito voted to grant Alabama's request. As is customary, neither side shared their reasoning.

The state had scheduled the execution of 65-year-old Madison for 6 p.m. Thursday.  Bob Horton, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said in an email Thursday afternoon DOC would continue planning for the execution "until the courts have made a final ruling." In its filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, the state indicated it could carry the execution out until midnight.

Madison’s lawyers say he has suffered multiple strokes over the last year that have lowered his IQ to 72, caused dementia and left him blind and unable to walk on his own. The ruling from the three-judge panel came less than 8 hours before Madison's scheduled execution.

“As a result of vascular dementia and memory deficits, he no longer understands why the State of Alabama seeks to execute him,” attorneys for Madison wrote in a brief to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday. “In finding him competent, the state court unreasonably imposed a standard more restrictive than what the law requires and failed to consider critical facts of Mr. Madison’s dementia and retrograde amnesia.”

A Mobile County Circuit Court last month found Madison competent to face his execution, based on the testimony of two doctors that Madison understood the nature of the case and the reasons for his execution. Madison’s attorneys argued the court used a restrictive definition of the term “mental illness” that did not take into account the effects of Madison’s strokes.

U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose upheld the lower court’s ruling Tuesday, saying the federal court could only decide whether the state court made “unreasonable” conclusions based on the evidence presented to it. DuBose ruled that the Mobile County court’s conclusions were “not unreasonable” based on the testimony of the two doctors.

The attorney general's office wrote in their response to Madison’s 11th Circuit Court filing that the federal court had to defer to the state court’s ruling and could not go beyond its findings.

“While Madison can falsely allege that the state court refused to consider dementia as being the same as psychosis or gross delusions, this Court cannot grant relief on that basis even if it were true,” the state wrote.

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If the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the stay, the appeals court will hear arguments about Madison's competence in Atlanta next month.

On April 18, 1985, Mobile police officer Julius Schulte responded to a report of a missing child at a home where Madison, then on parole, was staying with his girlfriend Cheryl Green. According to a 1997 court filing, Madison got into an argument with his girlfriend, then left the scene, but returned with a pistol and shot Schulte point-blank in the head. Madison also fired at Green, who was shielding her 11-year-old daughter, hitting her in the back.

Schulte died six days later. Green survived her wounds.

A jury convicted Madison of capital murder in September of 1985, but the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial because prosecutors excluded blacks from the jury pool. A second conviction  was set aside because prosecutors elicited expert testimony “based on facts not in evidence.”

A third trial in 1994 also resulted in a conviction, but the jury sentenced Madison to life in prison after hearing evidence of mental illness. Mobile County Circuit Judge Ferrill McRae overrode the jury’s decision and imposed a death sentence.

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