The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals today ruled that Alabama Death Row inmate Vernon Madison can't be executed.

Last May the appeals court halted Madison's execution, hours before he was set to die, in order to consider his appeal of a state court's ruling that he was competent to be executed.

The 11th Circuit today ruled Madison is incompetent.

Madison is one of Alabama's longest-serving death row inmates. He was convicted in the April 1985 slaying of Mobile police Cpl. Julius Schulte.

He was convicted and sentenced to death in both 1985 and 1990, but both times an appellate court sent the case back, first for a violation involving race-based jury selection and then based on improper testimony from an expert witness for the prosecution.

A doctor hired by Madison's attorneys with the Equal Justice Initiative, Dr. John Goff, had testified at a state competency trial in 2016 that Madison does not understand why he is being executed or the act for which he is being punished, according to the 11th Circuit opinion.

Vernon Madison

"None of the evidence at the competency hearing belies Dr. Goff's testimony. We therefore conclude that Mr. Madison is incompetent to be executed," the 11th Circuit ruled today.

Madison has claimed that he is mentally incompetent to be executed.

Madison, 66, has suffered strokes resulting in significant cognitive and physical decline, according to the appeals court ruling.

At the competency hearing, Madison presented unrebutted testimony from Goff that his strokes caused major vascular disorder (also known as vascular dementia) and related memory impairments and that, as a result, he has no memory of committing the murder--"the very act that is the reason for his execution"--and does not believe he killed anyone, the appeals court stated in its order.

"The state (Attorney General's Office) presented expert testimony from Dr. Karl Kirkland," the appeals court stated. "Dr. Kirkland testified that Mr. Madison was able to accurately discuss his legal appeals and legal theories with his attorneys and--on pretty much this basis alone--concluded that Mr. Madison has 'a rational understanding of [his] sentence'," according to the appeals court.

"Accepting the testimony of Dr. Kirkland, the Alabama trial court decided that Mr. Madison is competent to be executed," the appeals court stated. "Mr. Madison argues that the trial court's decision relied on an unreasonable determination of the facts and involved an unreasonable application of the law. We agree."