Pennsylvania has fewest number of inmates on death row in nearly 25 years

READING, PA | More than a dozen inmates in Pennsylvania have been removed from death row this year, leaving the commonwealth with the fewest under a death sentence in nearly a quarter-century.

In December, Pennsylvania had 175 men and women in solitary on death row.

Today that number is 160, not including Shawnfatee Bridges, whom the federal 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered immediately removed from death row's solitary confinement on Friday.

"It's not that often that people who are incarcerated win," said Bret Grote, legal director and founder of the Abolitionist Law Center in Pittsburgh. Grote helped to file a civil rights lawsuit about Bridges' solitary confinement.

Bridges, 40, has spent nearly half his life on death row. In 1998, he was convicted and sentenced to death for killing two people he believed had robbed his home.

His conviction and sentence were overturned in 2013. He remained in solitary as prosecutors appealed the ruling.

He's not alone.

There are 12 men on death row either awaiting resentencing or whose court-ordered reversal is not yet final, according to a Reading Eagle analysis of the latest quarterly data compiled by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, which tracks death penalty cases.

A decade ago, Pennsylvania had nearly 50 on death row with overturned sentences, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington and a former federal defender in Harrisburg.

A number of things could happen to Pennsylvania inmates condemned to death, but execution is the least likely. From 1973 to 2013, nearly half of those sentenced to death in Pennsylvania have seen their sentence or conviction overturned.

"More people are coming off death row whose cases are being reversed than are being put on death row," Dunham said.

In Pennsylvania, the Department of Corrections relies on court orders that either sentence defendants to or release them from prison to dictate death row removals.

"Inmates who have a current capital sentence, as imposed by the court, remain on the unit," said Amy Worden, a department spokeswoman, noting Bridges' reversal had been stayed by the courts.

Pennsylvania's death penalty system, which hasn't executed anyone since 1999, has been roundly criticized as unfair and expensive.

Because death row inmates are housed in solitary confinement, every removal marks a roughly $10,000 cost savings to taxpayers. It's these costs that led, in part, to Gov. Tom Wolf issuing a moratorium on executions two years ago.

"I'll give you one reason why people should care: money," said Marc Bookman, director of the Philadelphia-based Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, a nonprofit that provides resources and training for defense practitioners.

Those taxpayer costs were estimated by the Eagle at more than $800 million.

Because a death sentence is more likely to be reversed in Pennsylvania than upheld, the number on death row will continue to shrink, Bookman added.

Source: Reading Eagle, Nicole C. Brambila, Sept. 6, 2017

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