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.
Jul 16, 2019
Amidst an ongoing lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of South Carolina’s death-row conditions, the state has moved its death-row prisoners to a different prison. On July 11, 2019, the South Carolina Department of Correction…
Read MoreDec 30, 2020
Romell Broom (pictured), who survived a botched execution attempt in September 2009, has died on Ohio’s death row of suspected COVID-19 complications. He was 64 years old and had spent more than half his life on d…
Dec 29, 2020
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has amended its professional code of ethics to prohibit members from designing execution chambers or spaces to be used for torture, including long-term solitary confinement. “We …
Dec 18, 2020
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the human rights body charged with overseeing Western Hemisphere nations’ compliance with human rights obligations, has called on the United States to halt the scheduled Janua…
Dec 03, 2020
New COVID-19 outbreaks on the nation’s death rows have killed prisoners in Ohio and Missouri and sickened at least 11 men on Tennessee’s death row. James Frazier (picture…
Nov 16, 2020
Two death-sentenced prisoners in Kansas have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the state’s policy of automatic solitary confinement for death-row prisoners is unconstitutional. The two prisoners, Sidney Gleason
Nov 02, 2020
NEWS (10/30/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sen…
Aug 31, 2020
More prisoners in the United States have died in the coronavirus pandemic than have been executed in the country in past two decades, new prison data shows, and more California death-row prisoners have been killed by the virus…
Jul 20, 2020
In the latest episode of Discussions With DPIC, David Fathi, the director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, speaks with DPIC’s Managing Director Anne Holsinger about death-row conditions across the c…
Jul 01, 2020
Four California death-row prisoners are dead and more than 210 have been infected in a coronavirus outbreak that news reports say is “tearing through” the nation’s largest death row. Fueled by an influx of infected prison…
May 19, 2020
The Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) has announced that it will close the state’s death row and integrate most of its capitally sentenced prisoners into the general prison population. The move reflects the continuing decline…