U.S. Supreme Court Stays Alabama Execution to Consider Vernon Madison’s Competency to Be Executed

The United States Supreme Court has stayed the execution of Vernon Madison to consider for a second time questions related to his competency to be executed.

In a 6-3 vote, with Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissenting, the Court halted Alabama’s scheduled January 25 execution of Madison “pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari” he had filed seeking review of his competency to be executed. That petition was based upon new evidence of his deteriorating mental condition and that the doctor whose opinion state courts had relied upon in finding him competent had been addicted to drugs, was forging prescriptions, and was subsequently arrested.

Madison—who has no memory of the crime he committed as a result of a succession of strokes that have caused dementia—has been challenging his competency to be executed for more than two years.

In May 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit granted Madison a stay of execution to consider his competency claim, and the Supreme Court deadlocked at 4-4 on whether to vacate that stay. The Eleventh Circuit subsequently ruled in March 2017 that Madison was incompetent to be executed, saying that the Alabama state courts had acted unreasonably in finding him competent. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned that decision in November 2017, reinstating the state-court ruling and clearing the way for Alabama to issue the latest death warrant.

After the Supreme Court’s ruling, Madison’s attorneys returned to the state courts with the new evidence. The state court, once again, denied him relief, leading to Madison’s request to the Supreme Court for a stay.

The stay will provide the Court time to review two separate petitions filed by Madison’s lawyers. The first affords the Court the opportunity to address whether the Eighth Amendment permits “the State to execute a prisoner whose mental disability leaves him without memory of his commission of the capital offense.” The second petition challenges the constitutionality of Madison’s death sentence itself.

Madison was sentenced to death by an Alabama trial judge despite the jury’s recommendation that he receive a life sentence. Since the time of his sentence, Alabama has repealed the portion of its law permitting “judicial override” of a jury’s life recommendation, and no state now authorizes that practice.

Madison’s execution date has attracted international attention because of his severely impaired mental condition. On January 24, David O’Sullivan, the European Union’s Ambassador to the United States, wrote to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey with “an urgent humanitarian appeal” for her to reconsider the state’s decision to execute Madison, citing “his major neurocognitive disorder.” The letter “note[d] with concern that there is undisputed evidence that Mr. Madison has suffered multiple strokes, including a thalamic stroke resulting in encephalomalacia, that have damaged multiple parts of his brain, including those responsible for memory.” It also reminded Alabama that “[t]he execution of persons suffering from any mental illness or having an intellectual disability is in contradiction to the minimum standards of human rights, as set forth in several international human rights instruments.”

Madison’s lead counsel, Bryan Stevenson, said that he was “thrilled” by the Court’s decision to grant a stay and that “[k]illing a fragile man suffering from dementia is unnecessary and cruel.”