Alabama Death Row Misses 6 pm Execution Time

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary stay in the case of convicted Alabama killer Vernon Madison. His legal team has argued that the inmate should be spared because he has developed dementia and can't remember killing a police officer three decades ago. Madison was sentenced to death for the 1985 killing of Mobile Police officer Julius Schulte. The lawman had responded to a report of a missing child placed by Madison's then-girlfriend. Prosecutors said Madison crept up and shot Schulte in the back of the head as he sat in his police car. Madison's lawyers say strokes and dementia have left Madison unable to remember his crime or understand his looming execution. They argued executing someone in such a poor mental condition will violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.