Better Lawyers and a New Quandary: Dementia on Death Row | Why 'Black Girl Magic' Needs to Grow Up

The problems of an aging prison population come to light in an upcoming Supreme Court case.

Vernon Madison has suffered multiple strokes that have left him blind, with dead brain tissue and urinary incontinence, unable to walk independently or remember the crime that put him on death row three decades ago. And on Tuesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether the state of Alabama can legally kill Madison — who murdered a police officer in 1985 — despite a degenerative medical condition that has robbed him of the ability to understand the circumstances of his execution.

The case tackles questions about evolving standards of decency and the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment when the sentence is death. But it also spotlights an increasingly difficult proposition facing prisons and prosecutors: an inmate population that is rapidly aging and experiencing all of the physical and mental damage of that process, heightened by the intense rigor and stress of incarcerated life.

Nowhere is that reality more dramatic than on death row, where the wait time has more than tripled — from an average of six years and two months in 1984 to 19 years and nine months for prisoners executed in 2018 so far, according to Department of Justice data compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Shortly before his death in 1910, Leo Tolstoy corresponded with another giant of history: Mohandas Gandhi.

Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote tens of thousands of letters in his long, prolific life. And in one of the final ones he sent, written just two months before his death, in November 1910, the 82-year-old Tolstoy took up one of his favorite subjects with one of the men he most admired in the world. “The longer I live — especially now when I clearly feel the approach of death — the more I feel moved to express what I feel more strongly than anything else,” Tolstoy declared, “namely, what we call the renunciation of all opposition by force.”

Tolstoy’s moving missive on the virtues of nonviolent resistance was addressed to an Indian lawyer in Johannesburg, a man four decades Tolstoy’s junior whom he called his “friend and brother.” The recipient of that letter, and the man who would harness the power of Tolstoy’s insights to change the lives of millions of people in South Africa and his home of India: Mohandas Gandhi.

Black women use hard work, not supernatural powers, to combat racism, sexism and poverty.

Coined by Cashawn Thompson in 2013, “Black girls are magic” has been used as a unifying celebration of Black women. Shortened to “Black Girl Magic” or “#blackgirlmagic,” the phrase connotes a love and celebration for the unique experiences of Black women. As a rallying cry, it celebrates the lived experiences of Black women as magical because of the ways they face a multiplicity of oppression, such as racism and misogyny. Over the past five years, the term has gained traction in social media circles; like “I’m Black and I’m Proud,” #blackgirlmagic challenges cultural and political views that minimize Black women’s labor, beauty and talent.

Despite the term’s broad usage, critics argue that it reinforces stereotypes of Black women, with “magic” implying they’re somehow superhuman. Linda Chavers, for example, said Black women being described as magical disregards the oppression and hard work required of Black women in a world that constantly shows them hatred — not to mention the violent experiences of queer and trans Black women within Black communities.