Madison v. Alabama

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Madison v. Alabama

Interim Stat Pack for October Term 2018 – Adam Feldman

Justices release financial disclosures – Amy Howe

Challengers ask justices to put off census decision – Amy Howe

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Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
17-7505	Ala. Cir. Ct.	Oct 2, 2018 Tr.Aud.	Feb 27, 2019	5-3	Kagan	OT 2018

Holding: The Eighth Amendment may permit executing a prisoner even if he cannot remember committing his crime, but it may prohibit executing a prisoner who suffers from dementia or another disorder rather than psychotic delusions.

Judgment: Vacated and remanded, 5-3, in an opinion by Justice Kagan on February 27, 2019. Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Thomas and Gorsuch joined. Justice Kavanaugh took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Opinion analysis: Court orders new look at death sentence for Alabama inmate with dementia (Amy Howe)
Argument analysis: A narrow victory possible for death-row inmate with dementia? (Amy Howe)
OT2018 #1: "Rearranging Deck Chairs" (First Mondays)
Argument preview: Justices to consider competency in capital cases (Amy Howe)
OT2018 #0: "Looks A Lot Like Grift" (First Mondays)
Criminal cases in the October 2018 term: A law professor’s dream (Rory Little)
Justices add three cases to merits docket, but deny review in DACA-termination case (Amy Howe)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Jan 18 2018	Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due February 20, 2018)
Jan 19 2018	Brief of respondent State of Alabama in opposition filed.
Jan 22 2018	Application (17A770) for a stay of execution of sentence of death, submitted to Justice Thomas.
Jan 22 2018	Reply of petitioner Vernon Madison filed.
Jan 22 2018	Response to application from respondent State of Alabama filed.
Jan 25 2018	UPON CONSIDERATION of the application of counsel for the applicant, IT IS ORDERED that execution of the sentence of death is hereby stayed pending further order of Justice Thomas or of the Court.
Jan 25 2018	Application (17A770) referred to the Court.
Jan 25 2018	Application (17A770) granted by the Court. The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is granted pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the issuance of the mandate of this Court. Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, and Justice Gorsuch would deny the application.
Feb 01 2018	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/16/2018.
Feb 20 2018	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/23/2018.
Feb 26 2018	Motion to proceed in forma pauperis and petition for a writ of certiorari GRANTED.
Mar 15 2018	Joint motion for an extension of time file the briefs on the merits.
Mar 27 2018	Joint motion to extend the time to file the briefs on the merits granted. The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including May 22, 2018. The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including July 31, 2018.
May 10 2018	Motion to dispense with printing the joint appendix filed by petitioner Vernon Madison.
May 18 2018	Blanket Consent filed by Respondent, Alabama
May 21 2018	Blanket Consent filed by Petitioner, Vernon Madison
May 22 2018	Brief of petitioner Vernon Madison filed.
May 29 2018	Motion to dispense with printing the joint appendix filed by petitioner GRANTED.
May 29 2018	Brief amici curiae of American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association filed.
Jul 09 2018	SET FOR ARGUMENT On Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Jul 31 2018	Brief of respondent State of Alabama filed.
Aug 03 2018	CIRCULATED
Aug 07 2018	Record requested from the Circuit Court of Alabama, Mobile County.
Aug 07 2018	Brief amici curiae of States of Texas, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Aug 07 2018	Brief amicus curiae of National Association of Police Organizations filed. (Distributed)
Aug 14 2018	Record received from the Court of Criminal Appeals State of Alabama. The record is electronic.
Aug 16 2018	Record received from the Circuit Court of Alabama, Mobile County. The record is electronic.
Aug 17 2018	Record received from the Circuit Court of Alabama, Mobile County. 1 envelope.
Aug 24 2018	Record received from the Circuit Court of Mobile Alabama (additional material).
Aug 30 2018	Reply of petitioner Vernon Madison filed. (Distributed)
Oct 02 2018	Argued. For petitioner: Bryan A. Stevenson, Montgomery, Ala. For respondent: Thomas R. Govan, Jr., Alabama Deputy Attorney General, Montgomery, Ala.
Dec 18 2018	Record received from the Mobile County Circuit Criminal, one box of exhibits.
Feb 27 2019	Judgment VACATED and case REMANDED. Kagan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas and Gorsuch, JJ., joined. Kavanaugh, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Apr 01 2019	MANDATE ISSUED.
Apr 01 2019	JUDGMENT ISSUED.

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The Supreme Court will release orders from the June 13 conference on Monday at 9:30 a.m.; John Elwood's "Relist Watch" compiles the petitions that were relisted for this conference.
There is a possibility of opinions on Monday at 10 a.m.
On Thursday, the justices meet for their June 20 conference.
Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Decisions
- Quarles v. United States Michigan’s third-degree home-invasion statute substantially corresponds to or is narrower than generic burglary for purposes of qualifying for enhanced sentencing under the Armed Career Criminal Act.
- Parker Drilling Management Services, Ltd. v. Newton Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, when federal law addresses the relevant issue, state law is not adopted as surrogate federal law on the Outer Continental Shelf.
- Return Mail Inc. v. United States Postal Service The federal government is not a “person” capable of petitioning the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to institute patent review proceedings under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.
- Azar v. Allina Health Services Because the Department of Health and Human Services neglected its statutory notice-and-comment obligations when it revealed a new policy that dramatically – and retroactively – reduced Medicare payments to hospitals serving low-income patients, its policy must be vacated.
- Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis The charge-filing precondition to suit set out in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is not a jurisdictional requirement.
- Mont v. United States Pretrial detention later credited as time served for a new conviction tolls a supervised-release term under 18 U.S.C. §3624(e), even if the court must make the tolling calculation after learning whether the time will be credited.
- Taggart v. Lorenzen A creditor may be held in civil contempt for violating a bankruptcy court’s discharge order if there is no fair ground of doubt as to whether the order barred the creditor’s conduct.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Jordan v. City of Darien, Georgia Whether the existence of probable cause defeats a First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim as a matter of law.
- Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (1) Whether Oregon violated the free speech and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment by compelling the Kleins to design and create a custom wedding cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding ritual in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs; (2) whether the Supreme Court should overrule Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith; and (3) whether the Supreme Court should reaffirm Smith’s hybrid-rights doctrine, applying strict scrutiny to free exercise claims that implicate other fundamental rights, and resolve the circuit split over the doctrine’s precedential status.
- McGee v. McFadden (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit erred when it found no constitutional error when the state failed to disclose Brady evidence, a letter from a jailhouse snitch, until the post-trial hearing for a motion for a new trial; (2) whether the state and federal courts’ decisions were contrary to Giglio v. United States, United States v. Bagley, Brady v. Maryland and Napue v. Illinois when the state failed to disclose material impeachment evidence, a letter from a jailhouse snitch who testified that petitioner confessed to him; and (3) whether the state and federal courts erred in finding that trial counsel rendered effective assistance of counsel when he failed to interview Michael Jones and call him as a witness.
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Cases argued 69

Cases decided 42

Summary reversals 5

Merits cases granted to date 73

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Cases argued	69
Cases decided	42
Summary reversals	5
Merits cases granted to date	73

3
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6
Conference

10
Orders
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13
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17
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20
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