The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment bars the execution of an inmate suffering severe dementia. Put bluntly, can a state execute a prisoner who no longer remembers his own name, much less committing the capital crime of conviction? In October, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Madison v. Alabama, a case that will determine whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of a prisoner whose medical condition deprives him of any memory of his offense.

In 1985, Vernon Madison killed a police officer in Mobile, Alabama. Madison was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution on Alabama’s death row, Madison suffered several strokes and was diagnosed with acute vascular dementia; his cognitive functioning is massively impaired and he has a very limited ability to remember events. In particular, Madison cannot recall any details of his crime or trial.