Death Row
Conditions on Death Row
Death-row prisoners are typically incarcerated in solitary confinement, subject to much more deprivation and harsher conditions than other prisoners. As a result, many experience declining mental health.
Death Row
Death-row prisoners are typically incarcerated in solitary confinement, subject to much more deprivation and harsher conditions than other prisoners. As a result, many experience declining mental health.
As the time between sentencing and execution in the U.S. has lengthened from a few years to decades, the conditions of confinement for death row inmates have come under closer scrutiny. Some Supreme Court Justices have raised constitutional concerns about the physical and psychological effects of being held for extensive time in solitary confinement, separate from challenges to the death penalty itself. Many legal experts in the U.S. and elsewhere have concluded that this prolonged isolation is a form of cruel and unusual punishment, comparable to torture.
Many death row inmates suffer from mental illness, and the isolation on death row often acerbates their condition. Older inmates also suffer from increasing physical disabilities, rendering their ultimate execution a particularly demeaning action.
The issue of extensive time on death row presents a dilemma: If death penalty appeals are rushed through the system, it might lessen the time spent on death row, but more innocent people will be executed and grave injustices will remain undiscovered. A thorough review of each case, with an openness to retrial upon the emergence of new evidence, has the side effect of keeping inmates in degrading conditions for twenty years or more. This inherent tension alone could lead to the end of the death penalty.
DPIC provides summaries of the conditions and rules governing inmates on death row in each state. It also tracks the amount of time that inmates spend under these conditions. Finally, DPIC collects the important court decisions related to this issue.
Sentencing Alternatives
Mar 21, 2023
Death-sentenced prisoners in California will be moved out of San Quentin State Prison (pictured) and placed in other maximum security facilities, as part of a broad plan announced by Governor Gavin Newsom on March 17, 2023. The governor seeks to “…
Conditions on Death Row
Mar 16, 2023
A 2022 article in the Columbia Journal of Law & Social Problems presents both a historical overview of the practice of death-row confinement in the U.S. and the findings of a survey of the conditions on death rows in every jurisdiction wi…
Conditions on Death Row
Feb 28, 2023
A joint research project begun by two Texas universities illustrates the confinement conditions of death-row prisoners, including areas such as visitation, health care, attorney visits, recreation, food, and opportunities for work. The Capital…
Human Rights
Jan 19, 2023
A Russian national on the U.S. federal death row has filed a civil rights lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the federal government’s use of automatic and prolonged solitary confinement to house individuals sentenced to death. T…
Human Rights
May 24, 2022
Florida has joined the growing number of states that have ended automatic permanent solitary confinement for prisoners sentenced to death. The Florida Department of Corrections agreed to the action as part…
Innocence
Mar 02, 2022
Lawyers for Texas death-row prisoner Melissa Lucio (pictured) have moved to vacate her April 27, 2022 execution date and remove the judge and district attorney in her case because of conflicts of interest stemming…
Human Rights
Dec 22, 2021
More than half of all U.S. death-row prisoners are or have recently been incarcerated in prolonged conditions of solitary confinement that are likely unconstitutional and that violate international human rights norms, a DPIC analysis of data in a …
Conditions on Death Row
Nov 17, 2021
Nebraska, which had no plans for housing a female death-row prisoner, has narrowly avoided having to address that failure, as a divided three-judge panel on November 8, 2021 sentenced Bailey Boswell to life in pr…
Sentencing Alternatives
Aug 02, 2021
Two Ohio civil rights organizations have filed suit against the state’s parole board, alleging that the board has an illegal policy of automatically denying parole to anyone who was formerly sentenced to death. On July 28,…
Conditions on Death Row
Jun 22, 2021
Unheard voices from death row come to life in the new book, Right Here, Right Now: Life Stories from America’s Death Row. The book, a collaborative project between the arts collective Hidden Voices and more than 100 men o…