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.

Overview

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.

At Issue

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.

What DPIC Offers

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.

News & Developments


News

Jul 16, 2019

Facing Prison-Conditions Court Challenge, South Carolina Moves Its Death Row to a New Facility

Amidst an ongo­ing law­suit chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of South Carolinas death-row con­di­tions, the state has moved its death-row pris­on­ers to a dif­fer­ent prison. On July 11, 2019, the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDOC) moved the state’s 38 death-row pris­on­ers from Kirkland Correctional Institution to the near­by Broad River Correctional Institution (pic­tured), into a facil­i­ty that had orig­i­nal­ly been built to house death-row pris­on­ers in 1988. In a press release, SCDOC said the move will address some of the con­cerns raised in a recent law­suit filed on behalf of the…

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News

Feb 15, 2024

Discussions with DPIC Podcast: Shedding Light on Underreported Stories of Incarceration and Death Row — conversation with Keri Blakinger

In this month’s episode of Discussions with DPIC, Managing Director Anne Holsinger speaks with Keri Blakinger, a jour­nal­ist at the Los Angeles Times and for­mer reporter for the Marshall Project — a non­prof­it news orga­ni­za­tion focused on the U.S. crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. At the Marshall Project, Ms. Blakinger wrote sto­ries about the human beings in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem — a focus that is still a pri­or­i­ty in her report­ing with the Los Angeles Times.

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News

Jan 09, 2024

Federally Death-Sentenced Prisoners Allege that New Conditions of Confinement Contributed to Recent Prisoner Death

According to state­ments from sev­er­al fed­er­al death row pris­on­ers, the new adverse con­di­tions” on death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, con­tributed to the December 1, 2023 death of Nasih Khalil Ra’id. Fellow pris­on­ers say Mr. Ra’id, whose giv­en name at birth was Odell Corley, died by sui­cide. Prison offi­cials have not released the report from Mr. Ra’id’s autop­sy or com­ment­ed on the cause of his death.

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News

Oct 05, 2023

World Psychiatric Association Releases Report Opposing the Death Penalty for People with Mental Illness or Development and Intellectual Disabilities

In July 2023, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) released its report and posi­tion state­ment on men­tal health and the death penal­ty. The issues addressed in the report include: the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty on pris­on­ers with men­tal ill­ness or devel­op­men­tal and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, the over­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers who have been socioe­co­nom­i­cal­ly mar­gin­al­ized, and the role of psy­chi­a­trists in death penal­ty cases. 

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News

Sep 05, 2023

Sole Woman on Tennessee Death Row, Age 18 at Time of Crime, Raises New Appeal Based on Youthfulness

Attorneys for Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, filed a motion on August 30 to re-open her appeals based on a recent deci­sion from the Tennessee Supreme Court. In 2022, the Court ruled in State v. Booker that manda­to­ry life sen­tences in homi­cide cas­es are uncon­sti­tu­tion­al when imposed on juve­niles, draw­ing on U.S. Supreme Court prece­dent that held that juve­niles are less mature, more vul­ner­a­ble to peer pres­sure, and gen­er­al­ly less cul­pa­ble than adults. Ms. Pike’s attor­neys argue that Bookers rea­son­ing applies to all youth­ful defen­dants, not…

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News

Aug 16, 2023

Judge Orders Hearing for Idaho Prisoner Who Faced 5 Execution Dates, Claims of Repeated Psychological Torture’

Idaho U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill has ruled in favor of death row pris­on­er Gerald Pizzuto, indef­i­nite­ly paus­ing his March 2023 exe­cu­tion date, and grant­i­ng him a hear­ing in his claim that the state of Idaho vio­lates his Constitutional right against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment by repeat­ed­ly sched­ul­ing exe­cu­tion dates while know­ing the state does not have the means to car­ry it out. As Pizzuto describes it,” Judge Winmill wrote, defen­dants’ repeat­ed resched­ul­ing of his exe­cu­tion is like dry fir­ing in a mock exe­cu­tion or a game of Russian…

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News

Apr 13, 2023

BOOKS: He Called Me Sister: A True Story of Finding Humanity on Death Row”

In He Called Me Sister: A True Story of Finding Humanity on Death Row, author Suzanne Craig Robertson details her jour­ney from reluc­tance to true friend­ship dur­ing her chal­leng­ing fif­teen-year rela­tion­ship with Cecil Johnson, a Tennessee death-row pris­on­er, who was exe­cut­ed in December 2009. Using let­ters, poems, and a per­son­al mem­oir writ­ten by Johnson, Robertson tells their mutu­al sto­ry of per­se­ver­ance, recall­ing that dif­fer­ences don’t have to be barriers.”

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News

Mar 21, 2023

California to Close San Quentin’s Death Row as Part of a Broader Prison Reform

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 trans­form” the state’s old­est prison into a one-of-a-kind facil­i­ty focused on improv­ing pub­lic safe­ty through reha­bil­i­ta­tion and edu­ca­tion.” The state launched a pilot pro­gram in 2020 allow­ing some death-row pris­on­ers to vol­un­tar­i­ly move to oth­er state pris­ons. Under that pro­gram, more than 100 death-row pris­on­ers have already been trans­ferred out…

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News

Mar 16, 2023

LAW REVIEWS— Decency Comes Full Circle: The Constitutional Demand to End Permanent Solitary Confinement on Death Row

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 with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in America. Regarding the use of high­ly restric­tive con­fine­ment, the author states that the sys­tem of per­ma­nent soli­tary con­fine­ment on death row has nei­ther the weight of his­to­ry nor the sup­port of the major­i­ty in either con­tem­po­rary prac­tice or social values.”

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News

Feb 28, 2023

NEW RESOURCES: Interactive Display Illustrates Conditions on Death Row

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 Punishment & Social Rights Research Initiative has cre­at­ed an ini­tial info­graph­ic describ­ing the con­di­tions in Texas.

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