Keisha meeter3/16/2023 Alabama, the Court recently held that executing someone (in Madison’s case someone with dementia) who cannot rationally understand their sentence amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. This conclusion derives from the confluence of two lines of U.S. Namely, it sets out why indefinitely incarcerating someone with dementia or other neurocognitive disorders violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. This article squarely addresses the second dimension of this carceral practice, that is the cost to human dignity. The costs both to taxpayers and to human dignity are only now becoming clear. Prisons are thus gearing up to become nursing homes, but without the proper trained staff and adequate financial support. To maintain the detention of this elderly population, federal and state prisons are creating long-term care units, which in turn carry a heavy financial burden. The elderly prison population continues to rise along with higher rates of dementia behind bars. Alabama and its implications for CFE and forensic evaluators. More specifically, this article traces the evolution of the competency for execution (CFE) standard, explores dementia and associated effects within the context of the Madison ruling, and discusses Madison v. This article explores the confluence of factors underpinning Madison's case and the important consequences of these rulings for mental health professionals working with the growing aging prisoner population. Two important rulings were proffered: (a) failing to remember the crime does not preclude an individual from execution, and (b) mental illnesses other than psychotic disorders may render an individual incompetent for execution. However, SCOTUS did not make a direct determination in Madison's case and instead remanded the case to lower courts to decide his fate. Quarterman (2007), SCOTUS reaffirmed the prohibition on the execution of an individual who lacks a rational understanding of the crime he or she committed and their impending punishment. Consistent with their previous holdings in Ford v. In February 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) addressed whether dementia and/or dementia-related amnesia of the crime precluded a defendant from being executed (Madison v.
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