Entries tagged with “Stays of Execution”
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Apr 25, 2022
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Stays Melissa Lucio’s Execution and Orders Hearing on Her Innocence Claims
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has halted the scheduled April 27, 2022 execution of Melissa Lucio and directed that a Cameron County trial court conduct a hearing to address evidence that she may be innocent of charges that she murdered her two-year-old daughter, Mariah (pictured, being held by her mother). In an unpublished three-page order issued April 25, 2022, the Texas appeals court granted Lucio review of four issues: that prosecutors obtained her conviction using false testimony…
Research
Religion
,Mar 25, 2022
Supreme Court Rules that Texas Must Allow Death-Row Prisoner’s Pastor to Touch and Pray Over Him During His Execution
On March 24, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed lower court orders that had denied a Texas death-row prisoner’s request for his pastor to touch him and audibly pray during his execution. In ruling for John Henry Ramirez (pictured), the Court emphasized Texas’ ability to prevent any delay of his execution by simply creating reasonable procedures to allow Ramirez the accommodations he seeks. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion of the court, joined by seven other Justices. Justice Clarence…
Issues
Executions Overview
,Mar 04, 2022
Texas Court Stays Michael Gonzales Execution to Permit Review of Claims of Intellectual Disability, Prosecutorial Misconduct
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has stayed the March 8, 2022 execution of death-row prisoner Michael Gonzales (pictured, second from left, with his legal team) based on evidence that he may be ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability and that prosecutors withheld favorable evidence from the defense at the time of trial. The appeals court’s order, issued March 3, 2022, halted what would have been the first execution in Texas in 2022. Gonzales filed a 169-page…
Issues
Methods of Execution
,Jan 28, 2022
Divided Supreme Court Vacates Injunction, Permits Alabama to Execute Intellectually Disabled Prisoner
A divided U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 – 4 on January 27, 2022 to allow Alabama to execute an intellectually disabled death-row prisoner, vacating an injunction issued by a federal district court on January 7 and unanimously upheld by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on January 26. In a decision rendered 1½ hours after the execution of Matthew Reeves was scheduled to begin, the five conservative male justices on the Court voted, without explanation, to let the…
Issues
Methods of Execution
,Jan 10, 2022
Alabama Federal Court Issues Injunction Against Executing Matthew Reeves by Any Method but Nitrogen Hypoxia
An Alabama federal judge has issued an order halting the scheduled January 27, 2022 execution of Matthew Reeves (pictured). On January 7, Judge R. Austin Huffaker of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, granted a preliminary injunction preventing Alabama from executing Reeves “by any method other than nitrogen hypoxia.” Huffaker found that Reeves is likely to succeed in his claim that the state violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when prison officials…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Dec 26, 2021
Oklahoma Federal Court Stays Execution of James Coddington
James Coddington, the last of the seven death-row prisoners scheduled to be put to death in Oklahoma’s five-month execution spree, has received a stay of execution. On December 23, 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Friot, who is presiding over a challenge brought by Oklahoma death-row prisoners to the constitutionality of the state’s lethal-injection protocol, stayed Coddington’s March 10, 2022 execution date “until a final judgment on Mr. Coddington’s claims in this case has been…
Research
Upcoming Executions
,Botched Executions
,Dec 07, 2021
Oklahoma Executes Bigler Stouffer After Governor Rejects Board Recommendation for Clemency, Federal Courts Deny Stay
Oklahoma executed Bigler Jobe Stouffer II (pictured, at his clemency hearing) on December 9, 2021, after Governor Kevin Stitt rejecting a pardons board recommendation to commute his sentence to life without parole and the federal courts denied his applications to stay his execution. Stouffer, 79, was the oldest prisoner put to death in Oklahoma. It was the eleventh and final execution of 2021. On November 17, 2021, the Oklahoma Pardons and Parole board voted 3 – 2 to recommend clemency for…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Oct 21, 2021
Alabama Executes Intellectually Disabled Death-Row Prisoner
Alabama has executed an intellectually disabled death-row prisoner who was sentenced to death by his trial judge despite a non-unanimous sentencing recommendation by his jury. Willie B. Smith III was executed by three-drug lethal injection on October 21, 2021 after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review his appeal of a lower federal court ruling denying his claim that the state’s choice to execute him by lethal injection violated his rights under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Smith…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Oct 18, 2021
Federal Appeals Court Reinstates Oklahoma Death-Row Prisoners to Lawsuit in Decision That May Require State to Vacate Execution Dates
In a decision with potential to vacate a number of Oklahoma execution dates, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has held that a lower federal court abused its discretion in dismissing six death-row prisoners from a lawsuit challenging the state’s execution protocol. The appeals court decision, issued on October 15, 2021, said that a ruling by Judge Stephen Friot of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma that six death-row prisoners who had not designated an…
Issues
Religion
,Upcoming Executions
,Oct 12, 2021
Texas Federal Court Stays Execution of Stephen Barbee on Religious Freedom Issue, Defense Seeks Review of False Forensic Testimony
A federal court in Texas has stayed the October 12, 2021 execution of Texas death-row prisoner Stephen Barbee on his claims that the state’s refusal to allow his spiritual advisor to administer last rites, touch him, or pray out loud in the execution chamber violates his constitutional and federal statutory rights to free exercise of religion. Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued the stay on October 7, 2021, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s…
Research
Religion
,Upcoming Executions
,Sep 16, 2021
Texas Court Halts Ruben Gutierrez Execution Pending Outcome of Supreme Court Case on Exercise of Religion in the Execution Chamber
At the request of Cameron County prosecutors, a Texas trial court has vacated the death warrant that had scheduled the execution of Ruben Gutierrez (pictured) for October 27, 2021. In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed Gutierrez’s execution after Texas refused to allow his spiritual advisor to accompany him in the execution chamber and directed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, where Gutierrez had filed a civil rights suit alleging religious discrimination, to…
Research
Religion
,Executions Overview
,Sep 09, 2021
U.S. Supreme Court Stays Texas Execution, Agrees to Review Contours of the Right to Religious Exercise in the Execution Chamber
In an after-hours order issued on September 8, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court halted Texas’s planned execution of John Henry Ramirez and agreed to review his claim that the state’s refusal to allow his pastor to “lay hands” on him or pray audibly during the execution violated federal law and his First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. The order, released shortly after 9:45 p.m. Eastern time — nearly three hours after Ramirez’s execution was scheduled to begin — directed the…
Research
Aug 05, 2021
Presidential Commission Hears Recommendations for Reforms to Supreme Court’s Death-Penalty Practices
Legal reform advocates and a committee of high-profile Supreme Court practitioners have urged the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States to recommend changes in the way the Court handles emergency applications for stays of executions in death-penalty cases. In testimony in public hearings before the Commission in June and July 2021, Innocence Project Executive Director Christina Swarns, who argued the Texas death-penalty case Buck v. Davis before the Court, and the…
Executions
Jun 29, 2021
Drug Manufacturer Says Nevada ‘Surreptitiously’ Obtained Drug for Execution in Violation of State and Federal Law
For the second time in three years, the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) and the state of Nevada are facing legal action from a pharmaceutical manufacturer after obtaining drugs for an execution in violation of the drug manufacturer’s policies. Hikma Phamaceuticals, a maker of the anesthetic ketamine, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford on June 24, 2021, threatening to sue the state for illegally obtaining ketamine for the execution of Zane Floyd, unless…
Executions
Methods of Execution
,Jun 17, 2021
South Carolina Supreme Court Halts Executions of Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens
The South Carolina Supreme Court has vacated death warrants for two death-row prisoners scheduled to be executed this month, staying their executions until the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDOC) complies with a newly enacted state law requiring that it offer condemned prisoners the option of being executed by firing squad. In separate orders issued on June 16, 2021 in the cases of Brad Sigmon, who faced a June 18 execution, and Freddie Owens, who was scheduled to be executed June…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,May 21, 2021
Court Halts Execution of Terminally Ill Idaho Death-Row Prisoner
An Idaho trial court has stayed the scheduled June 2, 2021 execution of Gerald Pizzuto, Jr. (pictured), halting state prosecutors’ efforts to put the hospice-bound terminally ill prisoner to death before his stage‑4 cancer can take his life and state officials can consider his petition for clemency. On April 9, Pizzuto’s lawyers filed a clemency petition, seeking to commute his sentence to life without possibility parole based upon his terminal illness, brain damage from head injuries…
Executions
Mar 11, 2021
Civil Rights Groups Accuse California District Attorneys of Unlawfully Interfering in Death Penalty Lawsuit
Five civil rights organizations have asked a California appeals court to block the efforts of three county district attorneys to lift stays of execution agreed to by the state as part of a federal-court settlement of death-row prisoners’ challenge to California’s lethal-injection protocol. [UPDATE: On March 9, 2021, the First District Court of Appeals dismissed the groups’ lawsuit.] On March 5, 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, Congregations Organized for…
Issues
Mar 01, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of February 22, 2021
NEWS (2/25/21) — Alabama: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has denied habeas relief for Alabama death-row prisoner Charles Clark, who the trial court had sentenced to death based upon a non-unanimous jury sentencing vote. Clark had argued that the trial court improperly ordered that he be shackled during the trial, without an adequate justification and without placing the reasons for shackling him on the record. His trial counsel had waived the claim by failing to object and Clark…
Issues
Religion
,Women
,Feb 15, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of February 8, 2021
NEWS (2/11/21) — Alabama: In a splintered vote with three conservative justices noting their dissents, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Alabama Attorney General’s application to vacate a federal appeals court injunction that had halted that night’s scheduled execution of Willie B. Smith III unless the state permitted his pastor to be present in the death chamber to provide religious comfort during his execution. In a second night-of-execution order, the Court lifted a stay of execution based…
Research
Religion
,Upcoming Executions
,Feb 10, 2021
Supreme Court Lets Stand Federal Appeals Court Injunction Halting Alabama Execution on Claim of Religious Discrimination
Four hours after Alabama was scheduled to execute death-row prisoner Willie B. Smith III on February 11, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a federal appeals court injunction barring the execution from going forward unless the state permitted Smith’s pastor to be present to provide him religious comfort in the execution chamber. Alabama then announced that it was calling off the execution. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit had issued the preliminary injunction late in the…
Issues
Women
,Federal Death Penalty
,Jan 13, 2021
Supreme Court Vacates Stays of Execution, Paves Way for Late-Night Execution of Lisa Montgomery
After a series of rulings by the United States Supreme Court summarily vacated two stays of execution and denied attempts to reinstate two others, the federal government executed death row prisoner Lisa Montgomery (pictured) on January 13, 2021. Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, was the first woman executed by the federal government in more than 67 years, the first person executed in the U.S. in 2021, and the 11th prisoner put to death in a six-month federal execution spree…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Federal Death Penalty
,Dec 28, 2020
District Court Voids Lisa Montgomery Execution Date; Federal Prosecutors Appeal
Saying the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) acted unlawfully in resetting Lisa Montgomery’s execution for January 12, 2021, a federal judge in Washington has for a second time blocked efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice to put to death the only woman on federal death row. In an order issued late in the day on December 24, 2020, U.S. District Court Judge Randolph D. Moss agreed with Montgomery’s lawyers that the BOP lacked legal authority to reschedule Montgomery’s execution while a…
Issues
Dec 02, 2020
Citing State’s Lack of Execution Drugs, South Carolina Supreme Court Stays Richard Moore’s Execution
Saying that the state lacked the ability to carry out a lethal injection, the South Carolina Supreme Court has stayed the scheduled December 4, 2020 execution of Richard Moore (pictured). With no state executions scheduled for the remainder of the year, the stay means that states will carry out fewer executions in 2020 than in any year since 1983. In an order issued November 30, the court wrote that it had “been advised the South Carolina Department of Corrections does not have, and will not…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Methods of Execution
,Nov 20, 2020
South Carolina Seeks to Execute Richard Moore December 4, But Won’t Say How
South Carolina has issued a death warrant to execute Richard Moore (pictured) on December 4, 2020, but, his lawyers say, the state has refused to tell him how it intends to carry it out. In a motion to stay Moore’s execution, filed in the South Carolina Supreme Court on November 16, Moore’s lawyers say that “the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) has provided no information about how it intends to carry out the … execution,” preventing Moore from making an intelligent selection…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Nov 09, 2020
Citing COVID-19, Governor Grants Reprieve to Tennessee Death-Row Prisoner Pervis Payne
Citing the coronavirus pandemic, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has granted a temporary reprieve to death-row prisoner Pervis Payne, halting his scheduled December 3, 2020 execution. The execution was the last scheduled by any state in 2020, assuring that states will carry out fewer executions in 2020 than in any other year since 1983. Lee issued a temporary reprieve on November 6, 2020 that will remain in effect until April 9, 2021. A short statement released by the governor in connection with…
Research
Nov 05, 2020
Symposium: The Growing Impact of the Supreme Court Shadow Docket on Death Penalty Cases
The U.S. Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” is having a growing and disproportionate impact on the Court’s resolution of controversial social issues, with some of its most profound effects being felt in death penalty cases. The term, coined in 2015 by law professor William Baude, refers to expedited emergency rulings made by the court without full briefing and argument, typically unsigned and rendered without an opinion explaining the Court’s legal reasoning. In a seven-article online symposium…
Executions
Federal Death Penalty
,Sep 23, 2020
Federal Government Conducts Sixth and Seventh Executions Amid Continuing Litigation Over COVID-19 and the Legality of Its Execution Protocol
The federal government conducted its sixth and seventh executions in ten weeks on September 22 and 24, putting William Emmett LeCroy (pictured) and Christopher Vialva to death amid continuing challenges to the federal execution protocol and to carrying out executions during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the federal appeal courts set aside LeCroy’s execution challenges, Vialva’s lawsuit challenging the legality of the federal execution protocol remained pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. After the…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Sep 16, 2020
News Brief — COVID-19 Halts Another State Execution
NEWS (9/15/20) — Texas: A Bexar County trial court judge has issued an order withdrawing the death warrant that had scheduled Carlos Trevino’s execution for September 30, 2020. The court cited “the current COVID-19 conditions in Texas” as the grounds for postponement. The order was the third time in 2020 that Trevino’s execution had been rescheduled. His execution was initially scheduled for March 11, 2020, but was postponed until June 3. Shortly thereafter, Governor Greg Abbott declared a…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Jul 01, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of June 29, 2020
NEWS (7/2/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court denied relief to death-row prisoner Leroy Pooler, applying two recent decisions that retroactively rescinded case precedent that could have overturned his death sentence. The court ruled that it would not apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hall v. Florida to Pooler’s intellectual disability claim, leaving in place a prior state court decision that had used an unconstitutionally narrow standard to reject his claim. The court also ruled…
Research
Religion
,Upcoming Executions
,Jun 17, 2020
News Brief — U.S. Supreme Court Stays Execution of Ruben Gutierrez in Texas
NEWS (6/16/20) — Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Supreme Court has stayed the execution of Ruben Gutierrez over concerns about the refusal by the state of Texas to allow a chaplain to accompany Gutierrez in the execution chamber. The order, issued one hour before Gutierrez was scheduled to be put to death, stayed his execution pending the court’s disposition of Gutierrez’s petition to review his religious discrimination claim. Gutierrez had argued that Texas’ revocation of its prior policy of…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Executions Overview
,Jun 13, 2020
Death Warrant Update — Courts Halt Executions in Tennessee, Pennsylvania; Vacate Stay in Texas
NEWS (6/12/20) — Texas: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit lifted a stay of execution the federal district court had granted to Ruben Gutierrez. The action reactivates the death warrant scheduling Mr. Gutierrez’s execution for June 16. Gutierrez had sought the stay to permit DNA testing that he says will show that he did not commit the killing that put him on death row and to be permitted the presence of a chaplain in the execution chamber if the execution were to be carried out.
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,May 15, 2020
As Blood Spatter Evidence Causes Jurors to Question His Guilt, Missouri Prepares to Execute Walter Barton
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has vacated a stay of execution for Missouri death-row prisoner Walter Barton (pictured) who is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, May 19, 2020. The court’s unsigned opinion, issued on Sunday, May 17, lifted a stay of execution that had been issued May 15 by a federal district court judge. The district court said a stay was necessary to afford it time to address a petition Barton had filed that challenged his conviction and death sentence based…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,May 11, 2020
New Podcast: Capital Defense Lawyer Kelley Henry on Death Penalty Litigation During a Pandemic
In the May 2020 edition of Discussions with DPIC, veteran capital defense lawyer Kelley Henry (pictured), who is representing several Tennessee death-row prisoners facing execution dates in 2020, speaks with DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham about the unprecedented challenges of litigating death-penalty cases during the coronavirus pandemic. Henry, a Supervisory Assistant Federal Public Defender in Nashville, provides an inside view of how the extended public health emergency has affected…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,May 07, 2020
News Brief — Texas Appeals Court Stays Randall Mays’ Execution on Issue of Intellectual Disability
NEWS (5/7/20) — Texas: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted a stay of execution to Randall Mays, directing a Henderson County trial court to review Mays’ claim that he is ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability. The appeals court declined to address claims that Mays’ conviction and death sentence had been tainted by racial bias and juror misconduct and that he had been subject to improper interrogation by law enforcement. On October 3, 2019, the trial…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,May 01, 2020
Missouri Supreme Court Denies Stay of May 19 Execution for Brain-Damaged Man Tried Five Times for the Same Murder
In a case long marred by prosecutorial misconduct, the Missouri Supreme Court has denied a stay of execution for Walter Barton (pictured), rejecting his claims of innocence and incompetence to be executed. The court’s ruling on April 27, 2020 made no mention of Barton’s additional request to put off his execution because of public health dangers relating to the coronavirus pandemic. If Barton’s execution is carried out as scheduled on May 19, it would be the first in the nation since the…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Apr 17, 2020
Tennessee Supreme Court Stays Prisoner’s Execution Because of Investigative Time Lost to Pandemic
The Tennessee Supreme Court has stayed the June 4, 2020 execution of death-row prisoner Oscar Franklin Smith (pictured) and rescheduled his execution for February 4, 2021. The order, issued on April 17, 2020, granted a stay request filed by Smith’s lawyers, who had sought a postponement on the grounds that, because of the coronavirus pandemic, they had lost “critical time” for investigation in the case. In a March 18 Motion for Stay of Execution Due to COVID-19 Pandemic and an April 8…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Botched Executions
,Apr 14, 2020
News Brief — Governor DeWine Puts Off Three More Ohio Executions, Citing Drug Unavailability
NEWS (4/14/20) — Ohio: Citing the continuing unavailability of lethal-injection drugs to carry out executions in the state, Governor Mike DeWine has issued reprieves postponing the executions of three more Ohio death-row prisoners. Romell Broom, John Hanna, and Douglas Coley had been scheduled for execution on June 17, July 16, and August 12, 2020, respectively. Their executions were rescheduled for March 16, May 18, and July 20, 2022. In a news release, the Governor’s office said DeWine…
Executions
Executions Overview
,Federal Death Penalty
,Apr 07, 2020
U.S. Court of Appeals Lifts Injunction on Federal Executions, Returns Case to Lower Court for Further Litigation
A badly divided federal court of appeals has lifted a court order that had prevented the federal government from resuming executions after a hiatus of more than 16 years. In a fractured ruling with three separate opinions and no rationale for its decision commanding a majority, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 2 – 1 on April 7, 2020 to vacate the preliminary injunction that had blocked the federal government from carrying out four executions in…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Apr 06, 2020
News Brief — Fourth Texas Execution Put on Hold Because of Coronavirus Pandemic
NEWS (4/6/20) — Texas: A Texas trial court has rescheduled the execution of Billy Joe Wardlow from April 29, 2020 until July 8, 2020, the fourth execution in Texas that has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. District Judge Angela Saucier granted a motion filed by the Morris County District Attorney’s office to reschedule the execution, rather than withdrawing the death warrant as a defense motion had requested. If the court had withdrawn the warrant, prosecutors would have been…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Apr 01, 2020
News Brief — Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Stays Third Execution Amidst Coronavirus Concerns
NEWS (4/1/20) — Texas: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted a 60-day stay of execution to Fabian Hernandez, the third stay of execution it has granted during the coronavirus State of Disaster declared by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Although the court’s order doesn’t specify a reason for the stay, Hernandez’s counsel filed a motion seeking to delay his execution based on “the current health crisis, the enormous resources needed to address the emergency,” and counsel’s inability to…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Executions Overview
,Feb 29, 2020
News Brief — Death Warrants and Stays Through February 2020
NEWS (2/29/20): Four states and the federal government had scheduled 12 executions to take place in January or February 2020. Through February 2020, four executions had been carried out: two in Texas and one each in Georgia and Tennessee. (To enlarge map, click here.) As of February 29, 43 execution dates had been scheduled for 2020 by 7 states and the federal government. Six executions had been stayed and another halted by commutation. Eight executions had been reprieved and rescheduled…
Issues
Aug 14, 2018
Florida Justices Halt Execution as Handwritten Notes Contradict Police Testimony
The Florida Supreme Court has halted the execution of Jose Antonio Jimenez (pictured), scheduled for August 14, 2018. The unanimous one-page order issued by the court on August 10 did not explain the reasons the justices granted the stay. However, Jimenez’s motion for a stay referenced 80 pages of police records that, Jimenez’s lawyer said, had not previously been provided to the defense. Those records — which were part of 1,000 pages of documents turned over to the defense two weeks before the…
Executions
Nov 22, 2017
South Carolina Seeks Drug-Secrecy Law to Carry Out Execution that was Never Going to Happen
Claiming that a lack of lethal-injection drugs was preventing the state from executing Bobby Wayne Stone (pictured, right) on December 1, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (pictured, left) urged state legislators to act quickly to enact an execution-drug secrecy law. But as McMaster and Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling held a press conference outside barbed-wire fences at the Broad River Capital Punishment Facility in Columbia, South Carolina on November 20, they knew…
Issues
Executions Overview
,May 11, 2016
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…