Alito, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 17–7505
VERNON MADISON, PETITIONER v. ALABAMA
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF ALABAMA, MOBILE COUNTY
[February 27, 2019]
Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch join, dissenting.
What the Court has done in this case makes a mockery of our Rules.
Petitioner’s counsel convinced the Court to stay his client’s execution and to grant his petition for a writ of certiorari for the purpose of deciding a clear-cut constitutional question: Does the Eighth Amendment prohibit the execution of a murderer who cannot recall committing the murder for which the death sentence was imposed? The petition strenuously argued that executing such a person is unconstitutional.
After persuading the Court to grant review of this question, counsel abruptly changed course. Perhaps because he concluded (correctly) that petitioner was unlikely to prevail on the question raised in the petition, he conceded that the argument advanced in his petition was wrong, and he switched to an entirely different argument, namely, that the state court had rejected petitioner’s claim that he is incompetent to be executed because the court erroneously thought that dementia, as opposed to other mental conditions, cannot provide a basis for such a claim. See Brief for Petitioner 16.
This was not a question that the Court agreed to hear; indeed, there is no mention whatsoever of this argument in the petition–not even a hint. Nor is this question
