NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 17–7505
_________________
VERNON MADISON, PETITIONER
v.
ALABAMA
on writ of certiorari to the circuit court of
alabama, mobile county
[February 27, 2019]
Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the
Court.
The Eighth Amendment, this Court has held,
prohibits the execution of a prisoner whose mental illness prevents
him from “rational[ly] understanding” why the State seeks to impose
that punishment.
Panetti v.
Quarterman,
551 U.S.
930, 959 (2007). In this case, Vernon Madison argued that his
memory loss and dementia entitled him to a stay of execution, but
an Alabama court denied the relief. We now address two questions
relating to the Eighth Amendment’s bar, disputed below but not in
this Court. First, does the Eighth Amendment forbid execution
whenever a prisoner shows that a mental disorder has left him
without any memory of committing his crime? We (and, now, the
parties) think not, because a person lacking such a memory may
still be able to form a rational understanding of the reasons for
his death sentence. Second, does the Eighth Amendment apply
similarly to a prisoner suffering from dementia as to one
experiencing psychotic delusions? We (and, now, the parties) think
so, because either condition may—or, then again, may not—impede the
requisite comprehension of his punishment. The only issue left, on
which the parties still disagree, is what those rulings mean for
Madison’s own execution. We direct that issue to the state court
for further consideration in light of this opinion.
I
A
This Court decided in
Ford v.
Wainwright,
477 U.S.
399 (1986), that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and
unusual punishments precludes executing a prisoner who has “lost
his sanity” after sentencing.
Id., at 406. While on death
row, Alvin Ford was beset by “pervasive delusion[s]” associated
with “[p]aranoid [s]chizophrenia.”
Id., at 402–403.
Surveying both the common law and state statutes, the Court found a
uniform practice against taking the life of such a prisoner. See
id., at 406–409. Among the reasons for that time-honored
bar, the Court explained, was a moral “intuition” that “killing one
who has no capacity” to understand his crime or punishment “simply
offends humanity.”
Id., at 407, 409; see
id., at 409
(citing the “natural abhorrence civilized societies feel” at
performing such an act). Another rationale rested on the lack of
“retributive value” in executing a person who has no comprehension
of the meaning of the community’s judgment.
Ibid.; see
id., at 421 (Powell, J., concurring in part and concurring
in judgment) (stating that the death penalty’s “retributive
force[ ] depends on the defendant’s awareness of the penalty’s
existence and purpose”). The resulting rule, now stated as a matter
of constitutional law, held “a category of defendants defined by
their mental state” incompetent to be executed.
Id., at
419.
The Court clarified the scope of that category
in
Panetti v.
Quarterman by focusing on whether a
prisoner can “reach a rational understanding of the reason for
[his] execution.” 551 U. S., at 958. Like Alvin Ford, Scott
Panetti suffered from “gross delusions” stemming from “extreme
psychosis.”
Id., at 936, 960. In reversing a ruling that he
could still be executed, the
Panetti Court set out the
appropriate “standard for competency.”
Id., at 957.
Ford, the Court now noted, had not provided “specific
criteria.” 551 U. S., at 957. But
Ford had explored
what lay behind the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition, highlighting
that the execution of a prisoner who cannot comprehend the reasons
for his punishment offends moral values and “serves no retributive
purpose.” 551 U. S.
, at 958. Those principles, the
Panetti Court explained, indicate how to identify prisoners
whom the State may not execute. The critical question is whether a
“prisoner’s mental state is so distorted by a mental illness” that
he lacks a “rational understanding” of “the State’s rationale for
[his] execution.”
Id., at 958–959. Or similarly put, the
issue is whether a “prisoner’s concept of reality” is “so
impair[ed]” that he cannot grasp the execution’s “meaning and
purpose” or the “link between [his] crime and its punishment.”
Id., at 958, 960.
B
Vernon Madison killed a police officer in 1985
during a domestic dispute. An Alabama jury found him guilty of
capital murder, and the trial court sentenced him to death. He has
spent most of the ensuing decades on the State’s death row.
In recent years, Madison’s mental condition has
sharply deteriorated. Madison suffered a series of strokes,
including major ones in 2015 and 2016. See Tr. 19, 46–47 (Apr. 14,
2016). He was diagnosed as having vascular dementia, with attendant
disorientation and confusion, cognitive impairment, and memory
loss. See
id., at 19–20, 52–54. In particular, Madison
claims that he can no longer recollect committing the crime for
which he has been sentenced to die. See Tr., Pet. Exh. 2, p. 8.
After his 2016 stroke, Madison petitioned the
trial court for a stay of execution on the ground that he had
become mentally incompetent. Citing
Ford and
Panetti,
he argued that “he no longer understands” the “status of his case”
or the “nature of his conviction and sentence.” Pet. for Suspension
in No. CC–85–1385.80 (C. C. Mobile Cty., Ala., Feb. 12, 2016),
pp. 11, 14. And in a later filing, Madison emphasized that he
could not “independently recall the facts of the offense he is
convicted of.” Brief Pursuant to Order (Apr. 21, 2016), p. 8.
Alabama countered that Madison had “a rational understanding of
[the reasons for] his impending execution,” as required by
Ford and
Panetti, even assuming he had no memory of
committing his crime. Brief on Madison’s Competency (April 21,
2016), pp. 4–5, 8. And more broadly, the State claimed that
Madison could not possibly qualify as incompetent under those two
decisions because both “concerned themselves with ‘[g]ross
delusions’ ”—which all agree Madison does not have.
Id., at 2; see
ibid. (Madison “failed to implicate”
Ford and
Panetti because he “does not suffer from
psychosis or delusions”).
Expert reports from two psychologists largely
aligned with the parties’ contending positions. Dr. John Goff,
Madison’s expert, found that although Madison “underst[ood] the
nature of execution” in the abstract, he did not comprehend the
“reasoning behind” Alabama’s effort to execute
him. Tr.,
Pet. Exh. 2 (Apr. 14, 2016), p. 8; see
id., at 9. Goff
stated that Madison had “Major Vascular Neurological Disorder”—also
called vascular dementia—which had caused “significant cognitive
decline.”
Ibid. And Goff underscored that Madison
“demonstrate[d] retrograde amnesia” about his crime, meaning that
he had no “independent recollection[ ]” of the murder.
Id.,
at 8; see
id., at 9. For his part, Dr. Karl Kirkland, the
court-appointed expert, reported that Madison “was able to discuss
his case” accurately and “appear[ed] to understand his legal
situation.” Tr., Ct. Exh. 1, pp. 10–11. Although Kirkland
acknowledged that Madison’s strokes had led to cognitive decline,
see
id., at 10, the psychologist made no men- tion of
Madison’s diagnosed vascular dementia. Rather, Kirkland highlighted
that “[t]here was no evidence of psychosis, paranoia, or delusion.”
Id., at 9; see
ibid. (Madison “did not seem
delusional at all”).
At a competency hearing, Alabama similarly
stressed Madison’s absence of psychotic episodes or delusions. The
State asked both experts to affirm that Madison was “neither
delusional [n]or psychotic.” Tr. 56; see
id., at 22. And its
closing argument focused on their agreement that he was not. As the
State summarized: “He’s not psychotic. He’s not delusional.”
Id., at 81. On the State’s view, that fact answered the
competency question because “[t]he Supreme Court is looking at
whether someone’s delusions or someone’s paranoia or someone’s
psychosis is standing in the way of” rationally understanding his
punishment.
Id., at 82. Madison’s counsel disputed that
point. “[T]he State would like to say, well, he’s not delusional,
he’s not psychotic,” the attorney recapped.
Id., at 83. But,
she continued, “[t]hat’s not really the criteria” under
Panetti. Tr. 83. Rather, the Court there barred executing a
person with any mental illness—“dementia” and “brain injuries” no
less than psychosis and delusions—that prevents him from
comprehending “why he is being executed.”
Ibid.
The trial court found Madison competent to be
executed. Its order first recounted the evidence given by each
expert witness. The summary of Kirkland’s report and testimony
began by stating that the psychologist had “found no evidence of
paranoia[,] delusion [or] psychosis.” Order (Apr. 29, 2016),
p. 5 (2016 Order). The court then noted Kirkland’s view that
Madison could “give details of the history of his case” and
“appear[ed] to understand his legal situation.”
Ibid.
Turning to the Goff report, the court noted the expert’s finding
that Madison was “amnesic” and could not recollect his crime.
Id., at 6; see
id., at 7. In a single, final
paragraph, the court provided both its ruling and its reasoning.
Madison had failed to show, the court wrote, that he did not
“rationally understand the punishment he is about to suffer and why
he is about to suffer it.”
Id., at 10. The court “accept[ed]
the testimony of Dr. Kirkland as to the understanding Madison has
concerning the situation.”
Ibid. “Further,” the court
concluded, “the evidence does not support that Mr. Madison is
delusional.”
Ibid.
Madison next sought habeas relief in federal
court, where he faced the heavy burden of showing that the
state-court ruling “involved an unreasonable application of[ ]
clearly established federal law” or rested on an “unreasonable
determination of the facts.” Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U. S. C. §2254(d). The
District Court rejected his petition, but the Court of Appeals for
the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Madison had demonstrated both kinds
of indisputable error. See
Madison v.
Commissioner,
851 F.3d 1173 (2017). This Court then summarily reversed the
appeals court’s decision. See
Dunn v.
Madison, 583
U. S. ___ (2017) (
per curiam). We explained, contrary
to the Eleventh Circuit’s principal holding, that “[n]either
Panetti nor
Ford ‘clearly established’ that a
prisoner is incompetent to be executed” because of a simple failure
to remember his crime.
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 4). And we
found that the state court did not act unreasonably—otherwise put,
did not err “beyond any possibility for fairminded
disagreement”—when it found that Madison had the necessary
understanding to be executed.
Ibid. (internal quotation
marks omitted). But we made clear that our decision was premised on
AEDPA’s “demanding” and “deferential standard.”
Id., at ___,
___ (slip op., at 3, 4). “We express[ed] no view” on the question
of Madison’s competency “outside of the AEDPA context.”
Id.,
at ___ (slip op., at 4).[
1]
When Alabama set an execution date in 2018,
Madison returned to state court to argue again that his mental
condition precluded the State from going forward. In his petition,
Madison reiterated the facts and arguments he had previously
presented to the state court. But Madison also claimed that since
that court’s decision (1) he had suffered further cognitive decline
and (2) a state board had suspended Kirkland’s license to practice
psychology, thus discrediting his prior testimony. See Pet. to
Suspend Execution in No. CC–85–1385.80 (C. C. Mobile Cty., Ala.,
Dec. 18, 2017), pp. 1–2, 16–19.[
2] Alabama responded that nothing material had changed
since the court’s first competency hearing. See Motion to Dismiss
(Dec. 20, 2017), p. 9. The State also repeated its argument
that
Panetti permits executing Madison, pointing to the
experts’ agreement that he is “not delusional or psychotic” and
asserting that neither “memory impairment [n]or dementia [could]
suffice to satisfy the
Panetti and
Ford standards”
without “an expansion” of those decisions. Motion to Dismiss 4, 10.
A week before the scheduled execution, the state court again found
Madison mentally competent. Its brief order stated only that
Madison “did not provide a substantial threshold showing of
insanity[ ] sufficient to convince this Court to stay the
execution.” App. A to Pet. for Cert.
Madison then filed in this Court a request to
stay his execution and a petition for certiorari. We ordered the
stay on the scheduled execution date and granted the petition a few
weeks later. See 583 U. S. ___, ___ (2018). Because the case
now comes to us on direct review of the state court’s decision
(rather than in a habeas proceeding), AEDPA’s deferential standard
no longer governs. (And for that reason—contrary to the dissent’s
suggestion,
post, at 12—our decision on Madison’s habeas
petition cannot help resolve the questions raised here.)
II
Two issues relating to
Panetti’s
application are before us. Recall that our decision there held the
Eighth Amendment to forbid executing a prisoner whose mental
illness makes him unable to “reach a rational understanding of the
reason for [his] execution.” 551 U. S., at 958; see
supra, at 2–3. The first question presented is whether
Panetti prohibits executing Madison merely because he cannot
remember committing his crime. The second question raised is
whether
Panetti permits executing Madison merely because he
suffers from dementia, rather than psychotic delusions.[
3] In prior stages of this case, as we
have described, the parties disagreed about those matters. See
supra, at 4–8. But at this Court, Madison accepted Alabama’s
positon on the first issue and Alabama accepted Madison’s on the
second. See,
e.g., Tr. of Oral Arg. 11, 36. And rightly so.
As the parties now recognize, the standard set out in
Panetti supplies the answers to both questions. First, a
person lacking memory of his crime may yet rationally understand
why the State seeks to execute him; if so, the Eighth Amendment
poses no bar to his execution. Second, a person suffering from
dementia may be unable to rationally understand the reasons for his
sentence; if so, the Eighth Amendment does not allow his execution.
What matters is whether a person has the “rational understanding”
Panetti requires—not whether he has any particular memory or
any particular mental illness.
A
Consider initially a person who cannot
remember his crime because of a mental disorder, but who otherwise
has full cognitive function. The memory loss is genuine: Let us say
the person has some kind of amnesia, which has produced a black
hole where that recollection should be. But the person remains
oriented in time and place; he can make logical connections and
order his thoughts; and he comprehends familiar concepts of crime
and punishment. Can the State execute him for a murder? When we
considered this case before, using the deferential standard
applicable in habeas, we held that a state court could allow such
an execution without committing inarguable error. See
Madison, 583 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4) (stating
that no prior decision had “clearly established” the opposite);
supra, at 6. Today, we address the issue straight-up, sans
any deference to a state court. Again, is the failure to remember
committing a crime alone enough to prevent a State from executing a
prisoner?
It is not, under
Panetti’s own terms.
That decision asks about understanding, not memory—more
specifically, about a person’s understanding of why the State seeks
capital punishment for a crime, not his memory of the crime itself.
And the one may exist without the other. Do you have an independent
recollection of the Civil War? Obviously not. But you may still be
able to reach a rational—indeed, a sophisticated—understanding of
that conflict and its consequences. Do you recall your first day of
school? Probably not. But if your mother told you years later that
you were sent home for hitting a classmate, you would have no
trouble grasping the story. And similarly, if you somehow blacked
out a crime you committed, but later learned what you had done, you
could well appreciate the State’s desire to impose a penalty.
Assuming, that is, no other cognitive impairment, loss of memory of
a crime does not prevent rational understanding of the State’s
reasons for resorting to punishment. And that kind of comprehension
is the
Panetti standard’s singular focus.
The same answer follows from the core
justifications
Panetti offered for framing its Eighth
Amendment test as it did. Echoing
Ford, Panetti reasoned
that execution has no retributive value when a prisoner cannot
appreciate the meaning of a community’s judgment. See 551
U. S., at 958–959 (citing 477 U. S., at 407–408);
supra, at 3. But as just explained, a person who can no
longer remember a crime may yet recognize the retributive message
society intends to convey with a death sentence. Similarly,
Ford and
Panetti stated that it “offends humanity” to
execute a person so wracked by mental illness that he cannot
comprehend the “meaning and purpose of the punishment.” 477
U. S., at 407; 551 U. S., at 960; see
id., at 958.
But that offense to morality must be much less when a person’s
mental disorder causes nothing more than an episodic memory loss.
Moral values do not exempt the simply forgetful from punishment,
whatever the neurological reason for their lack of recall.
But such memory loss still may factor into the
“rational understanding” analysis that
Panetti demands. If
that loss combines and interacts with other mental shortfalls to
deprive a person of the capacity to comprehend why the State is
exacting death as punishment, then the
Panetti standard will
be satisfied. That may be so when a person has difficulty
preserving any memories, so that even newly gained knowledge
(about, say, the crime and punishment) will be quickly forgotten.
Or it may be so when cognitive deficits prevent the acquisition of
such knowledge at all, so that memory gaps go forever
uncompensated. As
Panetti indicated, neurologists,
psychologists, and other experts can contribute to a court’s
understanding of issues of that kind. See
id., at 962. But
the sole inquiry for the court remains whether the prisoner can
rationally understand the reasons for his death sentence.
B
Next consider a prisoner who suffers from
dementia or a similar disorder, rather than psychotic delusions.
The dementia, as is typical, has compromised this prisoner’s
cognitive functions. But it has not resulted in the kind of
delusional beliefs that Alvin Ford and Scott Panetti held. May the
prisoner nonetheless receive a stay of execution under
Ford
and
Panetti? Or instead, is a delusional disorder a
prerequisite to declaring a mentally ill person incompetent to be
executed? We did not address that issue when we last considered
this case, on habeas review; in that sense, the question is one of
first impression. See
supra, at 6, n. 1.
But here too,
Panetti has already
answered the question. Its standard focuses on whether a mental
disorder has had a particular
effect: an inability to
rationally understand why the State is seeking execution. See
supra, at 2–3. Conversely, that standard has no interest in
establishing any precise
cause: Psychosis or dementia,
delusions or overall cognitive decline are all the same under
Panetti, so long as they produce the requisite lack of
comprehension. To be sure,
Panetti on occasion spoke of
“gross delusions” in explaining its holding. 551 U. S., at
960. And similarly,
Ford talked about the “insane,” which
sometimes refers to persons holding such irrational beliefs. See,
e.g., 477 U. S., at 401, 410.[
4] But those references are no more than a predictable
byproduct of the two cases’ facts. At the same time (and
interchangeably),
Panetti used more inclusive terms, such as
“mental illness,” “mental disorder,” and “psychological
dysfunction.” 551 U. S., at 936, 959, 960; see
Ford,
477 U. S., at 408–409, n. 2 (referring to prisoners with
“mental illness”). And most important,
Panetti framed its
test, as just described, in a way utterly indifferent to a
prisoner’s specific mental illness. The
Panetti standard
concerns, once again, not the diagnosis of such illness, but a
consequence—to wit, the prisoner’s inability to rationally
understand his punishment.
And here too, the key justifications
Ford
and
Panetti offered for the Eighth Amendment’s bar confirm
our conclusion about its reach. As described above, those decisions
stated that an execution lacks retributive purpose when a mentally
ill prisoner cannot understand the societal judgment underlying his
sentence. See
Panetti, 551 U. S., at 958–959;
Ford, 477 U. S., at 409;
supra, at 2–3. And they
indicated that an execution offends morality in the same
circumstance. See 551 U. S., at 958, 960; 477 U. S., at
409;
supra, at 2–3. Both rationales for the constitutional
bar thus hinge (just as the
Panetti standard deriving from
them does) on the prisoner’s “[in]comprehension of why he has been
singled out” to die. 477 U. S., at 409; see
supra, at
2–3. Or said otherwise, if and when that failure of understanding
is present, the rationales kick in—irrespective of whether one
disease or another (say, psychotic delusions or dementia) is to
blame.
In evaluating competency to be executed, a judge
must therefore look beyond any given diagnosis to a downstream
consequence. As
Ford and
Panetti recognized, a
delusional disorder can be of such severity—can “so impair the
prisoner’s concept of reality”—that someone in its thrall will be
unable “to come to grips with” the punishment’s meaning.
Panetti, 551 U. S., at 958;
Ford, 477
U. S., at 409. But delusions come in many shapes and sizes,
and not all will interfere with the understanding that the Eighth
Amendment requires. See
Panetti, 551 U. S.
, at
962 (remanding the case to consider expert evidence on whether the
prisoner’s delusions did so). And much the same is true of
dementia. That mental condition can cause such disorientation and
cognitive decline as to prevent a person from sustaining a rational
understanding of why the State wants to execute him. See
supra, at 11–12. But dementia also has milder forms, which
allow a person to preserve that understanding. Hence the need—for
dementia as for delusions as for any other mental disorder—to
attend to the particular circumstances of a case and make the
precise judgment
Panetti requires.
III
The only question left—and the only one on
which the parties now disagree—is whether Madison’s execution may
go forward based on the state court’s decision below. Madison’s
counsel says it cannot because that ruling was tainted by legal
error—specifically, the idea that only delusions, and not dementia,
can support a finding of mental incompetency. See Tr. of Oral Arg.
12, 21, 25, 27. Alabama counters that the state court did not rely
on that (concededly) incorrect view of the law. See
id., at
37–41. But we come away at the least unsure whether that is
so—especially given Alabama’s evidence and arguments in the state
court.
As noted earlier, the 2018 ruling we review
today contains only one sentence of explanation. See
supra,
at 7–8. It states that Madison “did not provide a substantial
threshold showing of insanity[ ] sufficient to convince this Court
to stay the execution.” App. A to Pet. for Cert. If the state court
used the word “insanity” to refer to a delusional disorder, then
error occurred: The court would have denied a stay on the ground
that Madison did not have that specific kind of mental illness. And
the likelihood that the court made that mistake is heightened by
the State’s emphasis, at that stage of the proceedings (as at
others), that Madison was “not delusional or psychotic” and that
“dementia” could not suffice to bar his execution absent “an
expansion of
Ford and
Panetti.” Motion to Dismiss 4,
10; see
supra, at 4–8; but see
post, at 9–10, and
n. 4 (disregarding those arguments).[
5] Alabama argues, however, that the court spoke of
“insanity” only because the state statute under which Madison
sought relief uses that term. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 37; Ala. Code
§15–16–23 (2011) (allowing a stay of execution “on account of the
[convict’s] insanity”). But even if so, that does not advance the
State’s view that the state court properly understood the Eighth
Amendment bar when assessing Madison’s competency. Alabama told
this Court in opposing certiorari that its statute covers only
those with delusional disorders, and not those with dementia. See
Brief in Opposition 12 (“[T]he sole question to be answered under
the state statute was whether Madison was insane, not whether he
suffered from dementia”). The state court’s (supposed) echoing of
statutory language understood in that way cannot provide assurance
that the court knew a person with dementia might receive a stay of
execution; indeed, it suggests exactly the opposite. The court’s
2018 order thus calls out for a do-over.
Alabama further contends, however, that we
should look past the state court’s 2018 decision to the court’s
initial 2016 determination of competency. (The dissent similarly
begins with the 2016 ruling, see
post, at 6–7, even though
that is not the decision under review here.) According to the
State, nothing material changed in the interim period, see
supra, at 7; thus, we may find the meaning of the later
ruling in the earlier one, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 36–37. And, the
State continues, the 2016 opinion gets the law right. Alabama’s
proof is that the court, after summarizing the psychologists’
testimony, found that “Madison has a rational[ ]
understanding, as required by
Panetti,” concerning the
“punishment he is about to suffer and why he is about to suffer
it.” 2016 Order, at 10; see Tr. of Oral Arg. 39;
supra, at
5–6. (The dissent quotes the same passage. See
post, at
7.)
But the state court’s initial decision does not
aid Alabama’s cause. First, we do not know that the court in 2018
meant to incorporate everything in its prior opinion. The order
says nothing to that effect; and though it came out the same way as
the earlier decision, it need not have rested on all the same
reasoning. Second, the 2016 opinion itself does not show that the
state court realized that persons suffering from dementia could
satisfy the
Panetti standard. True enough, as Alabama says,
that the court accurately stated that standard in its decision. But
as described above, Alabama had repeatedly argued to the court
(over Madison’s objection) that only prisoners suffering from
delusional disorders could qualify as incompetent under
Panetti. See,
e.g., Brief on Madison’s Competency 2
(Madison “failed to implicate”
Ford and
Panetti
because he “does not suffer from psychosis or delusions”); Tr. 82
(“The Supreme Court [in
Panetti] is looking at whether
someone’s delusions or someone’s paranoia or someone’s psychosis is
standing in the way of” rationally understanding his punishment);
see also
supra, at 4–5; but see
post, at 9–10, and
n. 4 (disregarding those arguments). And Alabama relied on the
expert opinion of a psychologist who highlighted Madison’s lack of
“psychosis, paranoia, or delusion,” while never mentioning his
dementia. Tr., Ct. Exh. 1 (Apr. 14, 2016), p. 9. That too-limited
understanding of
Panetti’s compass is reflected in the
court’s 2016 opinion. In its single paragraph of analysis, the
court “accept[ed] the testimony” of the State’s preferred
psychologist.[
6] And the court
further found that “the evidence does not support that Mr. Madison
is delusional”—without ever considering his undisputed dementia.
2016 Order, at 10.
For those reasons, we must return this case to
the state court for renewed consideration of Madison’s competency
(assuming Alabama sets a new execution date). See,
e.g., Kindred
Nursing Centers L. P. v.
Clark, 581 U. S. ___, ___
(2017) (slip op., at 9) (remanding when “uncertain” whether “an
impermissible taint occurred”);
Clemons v.
Mississippi,
494 U.S.
738, 751–752 (1990) (similar). 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.
Panetti, 551 U. S., at 958. In
answering that question—on which we again express no view, see
supra, at 6—the state court may not rely on any arguments or
evidence tainted with the legal errors we have addressed. And
because that is so, the court should consider whether it needs to
supplement the existing record. Some evidence in that record,
including portions of the experts’ reports and testimony, expressly
reflects an incorrect view of the relevance of delusions or memory;
still other evidence might have implicitly rested on those same
misjudgments. 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.
We accordingly vacate the judgment of the state
court and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent
with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Kavanaugh took no part in the
consideration or decision of this case.