A federal appeals court on Thursday delayed the execution of an Alabama inmate — just hours before he was to die by lethal injection for killing a police officer — in order to review lawyers' claims that it would be unconstitutional to execute him because he is no longer competent because of strokes and dementia, reports the Associated Press .
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the stay about seven hours before Vernon Madison, 65, was scheduled to die at 6 p.m. by lethal injection at a state prison in Atmore. The appellate court said it will hear oral arguments in Madison's case in June. The Alabama attorney general's office responded with an emergency motion to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to let the execution proceed before the death warrant expired at midnight.