[Breaking news update, published at 6:52 p.m. ET]
Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has issued a temporary stay in the case of an Alabama death row inmate who is set to be executed Thursday evening. The execution of Vernon Madison is to held held off “pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court,” says an order signed by Thomas.
[Previous story, published at 6:22 p.m. ET]
Alabama is set to put to death on Thursday night an inmate whose lawyers say his dementia prevents him from remembering the murder he was convicted of committing decades ago.
Vernon Madison, 67, has been convicted three times in the 1985 shooting of Mobile Police Cpl. Julius Schulte, who was responding to a April 1985 domestic disturbance call. Madison, who was on parole, sneaked up behind Schulte and shot him twice in the head, according to court documents. He also shot his girlfriend, who survived her wounds.
Madison had two oranges for his last meal and had not made any statements, officials said.
At his first and second trials, Madison argued that he was not guilty because he was mentally ill. At his third trial, he argued self-defense.
His attorneys from the Equal Justice Initiative, based in Montgomery, filed a petition Thursday with the US Supreme Court, appealing a lower court ruling that would let the execution by lethal injection, set for 6 p.m. CT (7 p.m. ET) in Atmore, go ahead.
In November, the US Supreme Court agreed with a state court ruling that Madison was mentally competent.
“The state court did not unreasonably apply (two prior decisions) when it determined that Madison is competent to be executed because — notwithstanding his memory loss — he recognizes that he will be put to death as punishment for the murder he was found to have committed,” the justices wrote.
Madison’s lawyers asked Gov. Kay Ivey for clemency.
“Mr. Madison suffers from vascular dementia as a result of multiple serious strokes in the last several years, and no longer has a memory of the commission of the crime for which he is to be executed,” attorneys wrote.
“He does not understand why the state of Alabama is attempting to execute him,” they said.
They argue that executing someone with dementia is counter to how society treats vulnerable citizens.
CNN reached out to the governor’s office but didn’t get an immediate response.
Madison’s lawyers also argue the death sentence is unfair because it was imposed by a judge at his third trial who overrode the jury’s choice of life in prison. They say a new law no longer allows that and Madison’s sentence should commuted to life without parole.
Madison has been on death row for more than 32 years. There are 182 inmates on Alabama’s death row, three of whom have been there longer than Madison.