Vernon Madison, Whose Case Challenged Execution of Prisoners with Dementia, Dies on Alabama’s Death Row

Vernon Madison, an Alabama death-row pris­on­er whose severe demen­tia led to a major Supreme Court deci­sion on com­pe­ten­cy to be exe­cut­ed, has died in prison at the age of 69. 

Madison’s case twice reached the U.S. Supreme Court on ques­tions of the lim­its of fed­er­al court review of death-penal­ty cas­es and whether Alabama was enti­tled to exe­cute an aging, infirm pris­on­er whose cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties were severe­ly com­pro­mised. Madison’s attor­neys argued that a series of strokes had left him with­out a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of the crime for which he was to be executed. 

Madison (pic­tured) was one of Alabama’s old­est and longest-serv­ing death-row pris­on­ers, hav­ing been tried three times for the 1985 mur­der of a Mobile police offi­cer. His first con­vic­tion was over­turned because of racial­ly biased jury selec­tion. His sec­ond con­vic­tion was reversed because pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed improp­er expert tes­ti­mo­ny. At his third tri­al, the jury vot­ed 8 – 4 to rec­om­mend that Madison receive a life sen­tence, but — in a prac­tice no longer per­mit­ted in any state — the judge over­rode the jury’s ver­dict and sen­tenced him to death. In 2015 and 2016, he suf­fered mul­ti­ple strokes, caus­ing brain dam­age, vas­cu­lar demen­tia, and amne­sia, along with sev­er­al oth­er dis­abil­i­ties, includ­ing blind­ness and an inabil­i­ty to walk inde­pen­dent­ly. He no longer had any mem­o­ry of the 1985 mur­der for which he was sen­tenced to death or an under­stand­ing of what it means to be executed.

Madison was near­ly put to death in 2016, but a 4 – 4 Supreme Court vote on the day of his exe­cu­tion left a fed­er­al appeals court stay in place. In March 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Madison was incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed and that the state courts had unrea­son­ably lim­it­ed its review of his incom­pe­ten­cy claim to whether he was suf­fer­ing from a psy­chot­ic men­tal ill­ness. In November 2017, cit­ing lim­i­ta­tions on fed­er­al habeas cor­pus review of state court deci­sions, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor wrote a con­cur­ring opin­ion stat­ing that if the case reached the court in an appro­pri­ate pro­ce­dur­al pos­ture, ​“the issue would war­rant full airing.”

Alabama then sched­uled Madison’s exe­cu­tion for January 25, 2018. Madison’s lawyers again chal­lenged his com­pe­ten­cy, pre­sent­ing evi­dence of Madison’s con­tin­u­ing men­tal dete­ri­o­ra­tion and new evi­dence that the doc­tor whose med­ical opin­ion had pro­vid­ed the basis for the state court’s find­ing that Madison was com­pe­tent had been addict­ed to drugs and was forg­ing pre­scrip­tions at the time of his tes­ti­mo­ny, and had since been arrest­ed. Alabama’s courts refused to grant a hear­ing and Madison asked for Supreme Court review with­out the con­straints of the habeas cor­pus law. On the day of the exe­cu­tion, the Court grant­ed a last-minute stay to deter­mine whether to review the case and, one month lat­er, agreed to hear Madison’s claim.

On February 27, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that its 1986 Supreme Court deci­sion in Ford v. Wainwright pro­hibit­ing the exe­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als who lack a ratio­nal or fac­tu­al under­stand­ing of the fact that they will be exe­cut­ed or the rea­sons for their exe­cu­tion is not lim­it­ed to cas­es of psy­chosis and men­tal ill­ness, but includes oth­er cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders such as demen­tia. In a 5 – 3 vote, the Court returned Madison’s case to the Alabama’s courts for an appro­pri­ate deter­mi­na­tion of Madison’s competency.

At the time of that deci­sion, Equal Justice Initiative Executive Director Bryan Stevenson, who argued Madison’s case at the Court, said he was ​“thrilled that today the Court rec­og­nized that peo­ple with demen­tia like Vernon Madison, who can­not con­sis­tent­ly ori­ent to time and place, are pro­tect­ed from exe­cu­tion and cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment under the Eighth Amendment.” 

Because of his con­tin­u­ing phys­i­cal and men­tal decline, Madison nev­er received a state court deter­mi­na­tion of his competency.