Alabama Prepares to Execute 65-Year-Old Mentally Ill Prisoner Disabled by Several Strokes

UPDATE: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit stayed Madison’s exe­cu­tion, order­ing oral argu­ment on his com­pe­ten­cy claim. Previously: Alabama is prepar­ing to exe­cute Vernon Madison (pic­tured) on May 12, as his lawyers con­tin­ue to press their claim that the 65-year-old pris­on­er is incom­pe­tent to be executed. 

Defense lawyers say Madison, whom a tri­al judge sen­tenced to death despite the jury’s rec­om­men­da­tion of a life sen­tence, suf­fers from men­tal ill­ness and has addi­tion­al cog­ni­tive impair­ments, ret­ro­grade amne­sia, and demen­tia as a result of strokes in May 2015 and January 2016. The strokes also have caused a sig­nif­i­cant drop in Madison’s IQ, which now tests at 72, with­in the range the U.S. Supreme Court has rec­og­nized as sup­port­ing a diag­no­sis of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. In addi­tion, the strokes have left Madison legally blind. 

In its 1986 deci­sion in Ford v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court ruled it uncon­sti­tu­tion­al for states to exe­cute men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent pris­on­ers, whom it defined as peo­ple who do not under­stand their pun­ish­ment or why they are to be exe­cut­ed. Madison’s lawyers have unsuc­cess­ful­ly argued in Alabama’s state and fed­er­al courts that, because of his men­tal impair­ments, he is unable to under­stand why the state will execute him. 

An Alabama tri­al judge ruled ear­li­er this month that Madison is com­pe­tent, and the court denied his motion for a stay of exe­cu­tion. On May 6, he pre­sent­ed his com­pe­ten­cy claim to the fed­er­al dis­trict court, which denied relief on May 10. Madison’s lawyers have appealed that ruling. 

Madison has been on death row for more than 30 years. His con­vic­tion for the mur­der of a white police offi­cer has been over­turned twice, once because pros­e­cu­tors inten­tion­al­ly exclud­ed black jurors from serv­ing on the case and once because the pros­e­cu­tion pre­sent­ed improp­er tes­ti­mo­ny from an expert witness. 

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court vacat­ed a deci­sion of the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals uphold­ing a death sen­tence imposed on Alabama death row pris­on­er Bart Johnson, and direct­ed the state court to recon­sid­er the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Alabama’s death-sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures. Madison’s lawyers have sought review of his case in light of Johnson and are also seek­ing a stay of exe­cu­tion to per­mit him to lit­i­gate the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the state’s judi­cial override provisions.