Page:Vernon Madison v. Alabama.pdf/23

Rh execution. The Eleventh Circuit interpreted those cases to mean that petitioner could not be executed because he did not remember killing his victim, Mobile, Alabama, police officer Julius Schulte.

We summarily reversed. Under the relevant provision of the federal habeas statute, 28 U. S. C. §2254(d), which was enacted as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), petitioner could not obtain federal habeas relief unless the state court’s rejection of his memory-loss claim represented an unreasonable application of federal law as clearly established at the time by decisions of this Court. We held that neither Ford nor Panetti clearly established that a person cannot be executed if he does not remember committing the crime for which the death sentence was imposed.

Our opinion stated, however, that it “express[ed] no view on the merits of the underlying question outside of the AEDPA context.” Dunn, 583 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4). And a concurring opinion authored by and joined by  and  teed up this question for review in a later case. Id., at ___ (slip op., at 1) (“The issue whether a State may administer the death penalty to a person whose disability leaves him without memory of his commission of a capital offense is a substantial question not yet addressed by the Court. Appropriately presented, the issue would warrant full airing”).

Taking this cue, petitioner then sought relief in state court based on his inability to remember his crime, and when that effort failed, he filed the petition at issue now.

The centerpiece of the petition and petitioner’s 11th-hour application for a stay of execution was the argument