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Abstract: 

Alabama prisoner Vernon Madison was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death. He killed a police officer in 1985 and thus began a thirty-one-year experience on death row. By 2016 Madison experienced a series of strokes and was diagnosed with vascular dementia. He then sought to avoid execution by claiming he was incompetent emphasizing that he could not recollect the crime for which he had been sentenced to death. Competence to be executed remains an Eighth Amendment, constitutional requirement. Having no memory of the crime does not necessarily preclude execution. Dementia may preclude execution. It is not the precise nature or description of the impairment that matters. What matters is the impact of the impairment: is the prisoner capable of having a rational understanding of why the State wants to kill him.

Keywords: Eighth Amendment; Madison v. Alabama, 139 S.Ct. 718 (2019)

Affiliations:  1: Executive Editor.