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Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the ​“West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993

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On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 

USA: Mississippi prisoners on death row lack air conditioning

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Mississippi Death Row
Death row inmates in Mississippi — along with those in most other Deep South states — don’t have air conditioning.

A Tuesday report by The (Baton Rouge) Advocate says Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida have no air conditioning on death row. Arkansas has air-conditioned its death row since the late 1970s, the report says.

“I’m glad to know that at least one state recognizes the need to treat prisoners like human beings,” Marjorie Esman, executive director of the Louisiana American Civil Liberties Union, told The Advocate.

In Mississippi, it’s not only death row inmates whose summer environments are controlled by little else than fans and an occasional draft. The only parts of the three state prisons that are air-conditioned are medical units, Mississippi Department of Corrections spokeswoman Jasmine Cole said.

Bear Atwood, legal director for the Mississippi ACLU, said the lack of air conditioning in Mississippi state prisons — not just on death row — is a problem.

“I’ve been on a cell block in Parchman (when) it was 95 degrees,” Atwood said. “I’ve never been so hot in my life.”

The Advocate report follows the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of three Louisiana State Penitentiary inmates claiming summer temperatures at Angola, La., where the prison is located, reached a heat index of 195 degrees in 2011, and of 172 in 2012. The article says a court filing shows actual temperatures ranged from 88 to 100 degrees. That lawsuit and other similar ones claim extreme temperatures violate the eighth amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.


Source: Clarion-Ledger, August 23, 2013

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Two inmates from Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola testified to what they called “indescribable” heat levels on the death row tiers, during the first day of a federal trial in Baton Rouge on Monday. The suit was filed by three ...
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USA: Air conditioning rare on Death Row in Southern states
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Triple-digit heat indexes experienced by three convicted murderers suing officials at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola are similar to the conditions endured by inmates on Death Row in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and ...
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Three inmates on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary filed suit in Baton Rouge federal court Monday against jail officials due to "appalling and extreme conditions...as a result of extreme heat" in the facilities.
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