Dementia and the death penalty

Abstract

As death row prisoners age, a new set of issues arises regarding their competence to be executed. Can a prisoner with dementia who no longer remembers the crime be put to death? What if the dementia has progressed to the point that the prisoner no longer understands that he or she faces execution, or why? These issues were considered by the U.S. Supreme Court in its recent decision in Madison v. Alabama. Implicitly rejecting the cruelty of executing a highly impaired prisoner, the court clarified the conditions that could preclude execution and the degree of impairment that must be present.