Supreme Court takes case of death row inmate who forgot the crime

[DonViejo]

Source: Reuters



FEBRUARY 26, 2018 / 5:50 PM / UPDATED 40 MINUTES AGO

Andrew Chung

The justices agreed to decide whether executing 67-year-old Vernon Madison, convicted of fatally shooting a police officer in 1985, would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment bar against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Supreme Court has previously imposed some limits on capital punishment relating to people with intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses.

Madison, who has spent decades on death row, has suffered several strokes in recent years, resulting in dementia and memory impairment, court papers said. He is legally blind, cannot walk on his own and speaks with a slur.

Alabama had previously appealed to the Supreme Court a federal appeals court ruling last year that Madison could not be put to death because his memory loss had left him unable to understand the connection between his crime and the punishment he is due to receive.




Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-deathpenalty/supreme-court-takes-case-of-death-row-inmate-who-forgot-the-crime-idUSKCN1GA2W0

[janterry]

1. I'm just sitting here shaking my head

[procon]

2. What kind of barbarous society kills old men with dementia?

What's the point! Will justice be satisfied with the death of a blind man who can't walk and wouldn't understand what was happening to him? Just end the death penalty and stop these senseless acts of biblical revenge that we try to gussy up as justice served.

[7962]

4. Which is why he should've been executed 30 yrs ago. When it would've mattered.

[procon]

5. Which countries still use state sponsored killings?

The US should be leading the way in implementing science based, modern sentencing and prison reforms like all other industrialized nations, not joining the ranks of the most backward and brutal regimes on the planet.

[7962]

10. How many other countries do or dont have the DP is immaterial to me.

The press is regulated in many "free" countries that we all love, does that mean we should also do that here? Trump would certainly love to get rid of DU, I'm sure. And he'd love a law to help him do it

We also have crimes that other countries simply dont have very often.

[jiminvegas]

7. And for those exonerated decades after their convictions?

Too bad for them. We just have to execute some innocent people so we can execute people faster.

[GeorgeHayduke]

8. I think 7962 is

Commenting on how bastardized the brutally anachronistic capitol punishment paradigm keeps those whom are condemed stuck in a track of unconstitutionally protracted injustice until it's too late; that "we're gonna kill you" but not until we torture you for 30 years.

[7962]

9. Partially, yes. Along with strings of endless appeals usually having nothing to do with innocence.

And most of which could be filed and handled in a matter of a couple years.

[maxsolomon]

3. We should heal him first; restore his memory

and THEN execute him. Then if possible, re-animate him and kill him a 2nd time. That'll show him.

Only resolute vengeance will deter future police shootings.

[jmowreader]

6. Yes, Colonel Flagg

What did they do, forget he was in there? Life without parole is the right thing to do here; he's going to be "executed" by old age any time now anyway.

[maxsolomon]

11. I forgot

but I think you got it anyway