In Lawsuit Settlement, Arizona to End Automatic Solitary Confinement for Death-Row Prisoners

Arizona will soon end its pol­i­cy of auto­mat­i­cal­ly and indef­i­nite­ly incar­cer­at­ing death-row pris­on­ers in soli­tary con­fine­ment, join­ing a grow­ing num­ber of states to ease dra­con­ian con­di­tions on their state death rows. Arizona’s action is part of a set­tle­ment of a fed­er­al law­suit filed against the Department of Corrections (DOC) by death-row pris­on­er Scott Nordstrom (pic­tured), which argued that the state’s death-row con­di­tions were unconstitutionally harsh. 

Nordstrom’s attor­ney, Sam Kooistra, said that the change in hous­ing does not mean ​“soft­er trea­ment” for con­demned pris­on­ers, but rather that they ​“get treat­ed more like non-death sen­tence inmates do” by being afford­ed an indi­vid­u­al­ized hous­ing assess­ment based upon their con­duct in prison and the risk they pose to others. 

70% of the approx­i­mate­ly 2,900 pris­on­ers on death row in the U.S. are auto­mat­i­cal­ly held alone in their cells for more than 20 hours per day, with near­ly two-thirds held in soli­tary con­fine­ment more than 22 hours per day, accord­ing to a sur­vey of state cor­rec­tions offi­cials by The Marshall Project. Other states such as California, Colorado, Louisiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia — prompt­ed by court chal­lenges over death-row con­di­tions — have already begun to allow death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers more time out of their cells and, in some cas­es, to eat meals and exer­cise with oth­er inmates, have con­tact vis­its with fam­i­ly mem­bers, and hold prison jobs. 

In February, a fed­er­al appeals court declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al Pennsylvania’s long-stand­ing prac­tice of auto­mat­i­cal­ly keep­ing pris­on­ers whose death sen­tences had been over­turned in soli­tary con­fine­ment — some­times for years — until they had com­plet­ed retri­al or resen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings and received a less­er sen­tence. Nine con­demned pris­on­ers in Florida have also filed suit on behalf of the more than 350 pris­on­ers cur­rent­ly held on the state’s death row, which asks the court to pro­hib­it pris­on­ers from being held in soli­tary con­fine­ment for indef­i­nite dura­tion and with­out a case-spe­cif­ic jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. Currently, Florida holds death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers in soli­tary con­fine­ment up to 23 hours every day. Three pris­on­ers on Louisiana’s death row have filed filed a fed­er­al class action law­suit charg­ing that their iso­la­tion at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola amounts to a ​“severe denial of human fun­da­men­tal needs.” Although prison offi­cials have begun allow­ing death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers four hours out of their cell per day, as well as some edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­ming and activ­i­ties with oth­er pris­on­ers, Betsy Ginsberg — one of the Angola pris­on­ers’ lawyers — said the class-action law­suit will con­tin­ue to ensure that the recent changes are ​“con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly ade­quate, prop­er­ly imple­ment­ed, and permanent.” 

These devel­op­ments in death-row con­di­tions come in the midst of a nation­al rethink­ing of the use of soli­tary con­fine­ment, which has come under fire as unnec­es­sar­i­ly, psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly debil­i­tat­ing, cru­el, and expensive.