U.S. Supreme Court to Decide if Alabama Can Execute Prisoner With Vascular Dementia and No Memory of the Crime

Less than a week after Alabama halt­ed the failed exe­cu­tion of a ter­mi­nal­ly ill pris­on­er whose veins were not suit­able for intra­ve­neous injec­tion, the U.S. Supreme Court has decid­ed to hear the case of anoth­er Alabama pris­on­er whose med­ical con­di­tion, his lawyers say, make him con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly unfit for execution. 

Strokes have slurred Vernon Madison​’s speech and left him legal­ly blind, incon­ti­nent, unable to walk inde­pen­dent­ly, and with no mem­o­ry of the offense for which he was sen­tenced to death. Madison’s vas­cu­lar demen­tia, his lawyers argue, make him incom­pe­tent to be executed. 

This is the third time since 2016 that Madison’s case has come before the Court. In May 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit grant­ed Madison a stay of exe­cu­tion to con­sid­er his com­pe­ten­cy claim. At that time, state pros­e­cu­tors asked the Court to lift the stay, but with one seat vacant from the death of Justice Scalia, the Court split 4 – 4, leav­ing the stay in place. 

Ten months lat­er, cit­ing uncon­tro­vert­ed evi­dence that Madison has ​“mem­o­ry loss, dif­fi­cul­ty com­mu­ni­cat­ing, and pro­found dis­ori­en­ta­tion and con­fu­sion,” the Eleventh Circuit ruled in Madison’s favor, find­ing him incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. Alabama pros­e­cu­tors again asked the Supreme Court to inter­vene. On November 6, 2017, the Court agreed to review the case and in a unan­i­mous unsigned opin­ion reversed the cir­cuit court’s deci­sion.

The Court explained that, under restric­tions on fed­er­al habeas cor­pus review of state deci­sions imposed by the Congress in the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), the fed­er­al courts were required to defer to state-court deci­sions under most cir­cum­stances. While express­ing ​“no view on the mer­its of the under­ly­ing ques­tion out­side of the AEDPA con­text,” the Court ruled that ​“the state court’s deter­mi­na­tions of law and fact were not so lack­ing in jus­ti­fi­ca­tion as to give rise to error beyond any pos­si­bil­i­ty for fairminded disagreement.” 

Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justices Breyer and Sotomayor, con­curred. However, they believed “[t]he issue whether a State may admin­is­ter the death penal­ty to a per­son whose dis­abil­i­ty leaves him with­out mem­o­ry of his com­mis­sion of a cap­i­tal offense is a sub­stan­tial ques­tion not yet addressed by the Court.” If the issue reached the Court in an appro­pri­ate pro­ce­dur­al pos­ture, they wrote, ​“the issue would war­rant full airing.” 

The Court’s rul­ing cleared the way for Madison to be exe­cut­ed, and the State of Alabama set a January 25, 2018 exe­cu­tion date. In response, Madison’s lawyers, led by Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, pre­sent­ed the state court with addi­tion­al evi­dence of Madison’s dete­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tion and new evi­dence that the doc­tor whose med­ical opin­ion had pro­vid­ed the court’s basis for find­ing Madison com­pe­tent had been addict­ed to drugs, was forg­ing pre­scrip­tions, and had since been arrested. 

The state court denied relief with­out an evi­den­tiary hear­ing and Madison’s lawyers — empha­siz­ing that this was no longer a habeas cor­pus case — asked the Supreme Court to grant a stay of exe­cu­tion to review the case. On the evening of the 25^th, the Supreme Court issued a stay of exe­cu­tion, halt­ing Madison’s exe­cu­tion so it could decide whether to review his claim. 

On February 26, the Court vot­ed to review the case to deter­mine whether the Eighth Amendment pre­vents a state from exe­cut­ing a pris­on­er whose men­tal and phys­i­cal con­di­tion pre­vents him from hav­ing mem­o­ry of the crime for which he was con­vict­ed. The Court may now review the issue unen­cum­bered by the lim­i­ta­tions on habeas cor­pus cas­es. The Court will like­ly hear argu­ment in the fall and a deci­sion is expect­ed by June 2019.