Court Directs Alabama to Reconsider Competency of Defendant With Dementia

The U.S. Supreme Court last month remanded to the state of Alabama a capital case involving a man—Vernon Madison—who was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death but subsequently suffered a series of strokes rendering him unable to remember the crime for which he was sentenced.

The court, in a decision written for the majority by Justice Elena Kagan, asked the state of Alabama to reconsider whether Madison has a rational understanding of the state’s reasoning for his execution.

Madison was convicted of the 1985 murder of a woman he was living with and a policeman who responded to a domestic disturbance call. In 1990 he was sentenced to death.

Since then, Madison (who is now 68 years old) suffered several strokes that resulted in vascular dementia. In 2016, Madison petitioned the state trial court for a stay of execution on the ground that he was mentally incompetent, stressing that he could not recollect committing the crime for which he had been sentenced to die.

Two Supreme Court precedents are relevant: In the 1986 decision Ford v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment precludes executing a prisoner who has “lost his sanity” after sentencing. And in 2007 in Panetti v. Quarterman, the court set out the appropriate competency standard: a state may not execute a prisoner whose “mental state is so distorted by a mental illness” that he lacks a “rational understanding” of “the state’s rationale for [his] execution.”

Alabama responded that Madison had a rational understanding of the reasons for his execution, even assuming he had no memory of committing his crime. More broadly, the state claimed that Madison failed to implicate Ford and Panetti because both decisions concerned themselves with gross delusions, which Madison does not have.

In an amicus brief submitted last year, APA and the American Psychological Association argued that the deficits associated with vascular dementia “interfere with Mr. Madison’s ability to form a rational understanding of his punishment and its relationship to his crime of conviction. ….”

Further, the brief states, “In these circumstances, and in light of the progressive nature of his disease, there is strong evidence that Mr. Madison’s understanding of the purpose of his impending execution, as well as his ability to process the explanations given to him, are severely impaired.”

The Supreme Court sent the case back to the state to reconsider Madison’s ability to comprehend the reasons for his execution. Writing for the majority opinion, Justice Kagan said the state had relied too heavily on the mistaken assumption that the two precedents—Ford and Panetti—precluded executing only individuals with gross delusions.

“For those reasons, we must return this case to the state court for renewed consideration of Madison’s competency,” Kagan wrote. “In that proceeding, two matters disputed below should now be clear. First, under Ford and Panetti, the Eighth Amendment may permit executing Madison even if he cannot remember committing his crime. Second, under those same decisions, the Eighth Amendment may prohibit executing Madison even though he suffers from dementia, rather than delusions. The sole question on which Madison’s competency depends is whether he can reach a ‘rational understanding’ of why the State wants to execute him. … The state court, we have little doubt, can evaluate such matters better than we. It must do so as the first step in assessing Madison’s competency—and ensuring that if he is to be executed, he understands why.” ■