Lawsuits Challenge the Cruelty of Decades in Solitary Confinement on Death Row

"In a dissenting opinion written earlier this year, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that “If extended solitary confinement alone raises serious constitutional questions, then 20 years of solitary confinement, all the while under threat of execution, must raise similar questions, and to a rare degree, and with particular intensity.” Yet in a majority of U.S. states where the death penalty is still in effect, it is standard practice to hold condemned men and women in extreme isolation for years or decades.

In the past six months, men held on Death Row in two southern states have filed class-action lawsuits, challenging what they say is the torturous policy which demands that all persons sentenced to death be held in solitary confinement until their execution — or until their eventual death by suicide, non-state homicide, or natural causes. The first lawsuit, filed on March 29th on behalf of three men on Death Row at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, appears to have pressured the state to make modest policy changes in the way it treats condemned persons. The second suit was filed on July 19th on behalf of nine men on Death Row in Florida, where conditions remain unchanged..."

Continue reading