On Thursday night, a man named Vernon Madison was scheduled for a lethal injection in a prison in southwest Alabama, a final punishment for a man who had killed a police officer. At the 11th hour, the United States Supreme Court stayed the execution, in order to further review the case, and leftist organizations are celebrating the delay in carrying out the sentence.
The facts of the case are simple. Madison was accused of killing an Alabama police Officer, Julius Schulte, by shooting him in the back of the head as he sat in his police car. However, nearly 33 years after the sentence was handed down, the question is whether he is mentally equipped to understand why he is being put to death.
Vernon Madison’s attorneys argue that Madison,
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The other basis for the execution is a claim by Madison’s attorney that the death sentence is illegal due to a law passed after the sentence was handed down, but the defense attorney claims should be applied retroactively.
Essentially, this law said that in Alabama, judges could not override a jury’s recommendation for sentencing in cases that are eligible for the death penalty.
In the case of Vernon Madison, the jury recommended that he receive life in prison, but the judge decided that Vernon Madison would instead be put to death. His defense attorney claims that due to the law being changed, Madison’s sentence should be changed along with it.
The state of Alabama and its attorney general’s office state that in their view, the law was not retroactive, and so it does nothing to give Madison a venue for avoiding the death sentence.
When criminals go to trial for crimes they’ve allegedly committed, there are circumstances where they can avoid serious sentences by being found unfit to stand for trial, and being incapable of remembering the crime they’re on trial for is one of