The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in the case of a man sentenced to death for killing a Mobile police officer but who lawyers say can’t remember the 1985 murder.
The court took up Alabama death row inmate Vernon Madison’s case yesterday. Madison had been scheduled to be executed in January, but the court stayed the execution to consider whether to take the case.
Madison’s attorneys argue strokes and dementia have left him unable understand why he’s facing the death penalty, or to remember killing Mobile police officer Julius Schulte.
Madison’s case will likely be argued in the fall, and he is safe from execution until the court issues a ruling.