The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday night halted the execution of an Alabama inmate who doesn’t remember killing a police officer because of his dementia, according to his lawyers.
Vernon Madison was found guilty of killing Julius Schulte, a Mobile police officer, in 1985. Madison was scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday night.
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, is considering whether to hear the case. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have allowed the execution to proceed.
Schulte had responded to a domestic disturbance call from Madison’s neighbor. When he responded to the property, Madison crept up behind Schulte and shot him in the head, according to court documents.
After three trials, a jury recommended life in prison for Madison, but a Mobile County judge sentenced him to death.
His lawyers, though, argued Madison suffered multiple strokes and dementia, which has left him unable to remember the murder. Madison is also blind and has difficulty walking.
“It is undisputed that Mr. Madison suffers from vascular dementia as a result of multiple serious strokes in the last two years and no longer has a memory of the commission of the crime for which he is to be executed,” Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer from the Equal Justice Initiative, wrote to the court in his application for a stay of execution this week. “His mind and body are failing.”
The high court ruled in November that Madison is eligible for the death penalty, reversing a decision from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The lower court had said Madison’s health prohibited his execution under the Eighth Amendment.
