Pennsylvania | Philly man held in solitary confinement 33 years must be let off death row, court rules

Ernest Porter spent 33 years in a 7-by-12-foot cell with a roughly 6-inch-wide window. He was allowed out for 10 hours a week — but leaving the cell meant being strip searched and then shackled. Exercise meant time spent in a cage, alone or with one other prisoner.

That was life on death row in Pennsylvania state prison. And Porter's was among the longest stints in solitary confinement on record, though his death sentence was vacated in 2003.

But now, Porter and 6 other prisoners have been moved out of death row solitary into general population, following a precedent-setting 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in September that found the conditions violated the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

It is the latest in a series of recent rulings that have forced the state to dismantle traditional death row solitary confinement by moving prisoners up for resentencing into general population and reforming treatment of those who continue to face execution. Last year, the state significantly increased out-of-cell time and other quality-of-life measures for those on death row, though the coronavirus pandemic subsequently put the entire state system on effective lockdown.

On Wednesday, the court affirmed its decision by denying a Department of Corrections request for a rehearing before a panel of judges.

"It establishes a major circuit court precedent, the first of its kind, holding that the mere fact of somebody spending such a prolonged time in solitary confinement is evidence to rely on in a finding of cruel and unusual punishment," said Bret Grote of the Abolitionist Law Center, one of Porter's lawyers. "This puts a significant deterrent on reimposing these conditions of prolonged solitary confinement."

Porter was convicted of fatally shooting South Philadelphia beauty shop owner Raymond F. Fiss, Jr., 52, during a 1985 robbery. The crime inflamed racial tensions in the community, where outraged white residents rallied and marched on City Hall.

While federal courts previously found that a prisoner whose death sentence was vacated can't be kept on death row, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) argued that didn't apply to those whose proceedings had been stayed in federal court.

A DOC spokesperson declined to comment.

Prison officials have argued inmates sentenced to death pose a danger to general population because they have "nothing left to lose." But Porter's lawyers said he's maintained a perfect disciplinary record — even as his mental health has deteriorated in isolation, causing "severe anxiety, depression, panic, paranoia, bipolar mood swings, and at times suicidal impulses," according to his court filing.

Now, Porter's complaint against the prison will return to federal district court for a possible civil trial. The DOC argued in briefings it should not have to pay damages: "Because no prior case from this Court — or any other Court — clearly established the wrongfulness of the DOC's interpretation, qualified immunity shields the DOC officials from liability."

Isolation on death row has drawn increasing criticism, amid a mounting number of exonerations involving cases in which the death penalty was threatened or imposed — including 13% of convictions overturned last year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Daniel Greenfield, a lawyer for the MacArthur Justice Center representing Porter and another prisoner in a similar situation, said the decision means two of the nation's 12 circuit courts have now held that those on death row retain basic constitutional protections.

"Previous decisions found what a death sentence really meant was you could throw away the key and not really examine the conditions under which they were held. Nothing is too barbaric," Greenfield said. "This decision really throws cold water on that."

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, Staff, November 1, 2020

🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Violent and sudden. What a firing squad execution looked like through my eyes

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — I’ve now watched through glass and bars as 11 men were put to death at a South Carolina prison. None of the previous 10 prepared me for watching the firing squad death of Brad Sigmon on Friday night. I might now be unique among U.S. reporters: I’ve witnessed three different methods — nine lethal injections and an electric chair execution. I can still hear the thunk of the breaker falling 21 years later. As a journalist you want to ready yourself for an assignment. You research a case. You read about the subject.

South Carolina Executes Brad Sigmond

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat was executed by firing squad Friday, the first U.S. prisoner in 15 years to die by that method, which he saw as preferable to the electric chair or lethal injection. Three volunteer prison employees used rifles to carry out the execution of Brad Sigmon, 67, who was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m. Sigmon killed David and Gladys Larke in their Greenville County home in 2001 in a botched plot to kidnap their daughter. He told police he planned to take her for a romantic weekend, then kill her and himself.

America’s next killing spree: 10 days, five states, six death-row prisoners set to die

Desolate spectacle of executions begins again under Trump, in landscape of capital punishment as riven as US is as a whole David Leonard Wood. Jessie Hoffman. Aaron Gunches. Wendell Grissom. Edward Thomas James. Moises Sandoval Mendoza. So many names. So many dead men walking. Ten days, five states, six death row prisoners scheduled for execution. For a decade now, capital punishment in the US has been on the wane. Last year, for the 10th year running, there were fewer than 30 executions in America, and the number of new death sentences is also tracking at historic lows.

Todd Willingham: Ex-wife says convicted killer confessed

The former wife of a man whose 2004 execution in Texas has become a source of controversy has said he admitted setting the fire that killed their three daughters during a final prison meeting just weeks before he was put to death, according to a Texas newspaper. Stacy Kuykendall, the ex-wife of Cameron Todd Willingham, said in a statement to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram published Sunday that Willingham told her he was upset by threats to divorce him after the new year. The fire that killed the couple's three girls was Dec. 23, 1991. Her last threat to divorce him, she said in a statement, occurred the night before the fire. "He said if I didn't have my girls I couldn't leave him and that I could never have Amber or the twins with anyone else but him," according to the statement from Kuykendall to the newspaper. Willingham went to his death proclaiming his innocence. And over the years, she has offered differing accounts. A Tribune investigation in 2004 showed the...

Iranian dissident risked execution by secretly filming luxurious lifestyle of those connected to the regime

Iranians in Tehran illicitly filmed scenes of their capital for Israeli Channel 12 news, an act that constitutes espionage in Iran and can warrant a death penalty. The clips, broadcast on Saturday, showed locals at high-end shopping malls that the videographers said are only financially accessible to those connected to the regime. “I filmed this video with great difficulty and fear, and I said I would send it to the Israeli Channel 12,” said a 44-year-old Iranian who sent footage for the report and went by the alias Ali, speaking in Persian. “I committed a dangerous act. If you just talk to Israelis, you become a spy and they will execute you.”

Indonesia | Briton faces death penalty for trafficking a kilogram of ecstasy in Bali

A British man is facing the death penalty for allegedly dealing a kilo of MDMA in Bali. Thomas Parker was seen for the first time since his January arrest on Thursday, paraded in front of media in an orange jumpsuit in Denpasar. The 32-year-old could face a firing squad if he is found guilty of trying to push the 1.055kg of Class A drugs police say they recovered in a mail package. MDMA is the main component in the party drug ecstasy. Parker was arrested outside an Airbnb in January, but the case went unreported until authorities showed the Brit shaven and handcuffed at a press conference yesterday.

South Carolina death row inmate chooses firing squad as execution method

Brad Sigmon, 67, is scheduled to be killed on March 7 A South Carolina death row inmate has chosen to be executed by a firing squad, which would make him only the fourth inmate in the U.S. to die by this execution method. Brad Sigmon, 67, who is scheduled to be killed on March 7, informed state officials on Friday that he wishes to die by firing squad rather than by lethal injection or the electric chair, citing, in part, the prolonged suffering the three inmates previously executed in the state had faced when they were killed by lethal injection.

South Carolina plans to carry out a firing squad execution. Is it safe for witnesses?

South Carolina plans to execute a man by firing squad on March 7, the first such execution in the state and the first in the nation in 15 years. But firearms experts are questioning whether South Carolina's indoor execution setup is safe for the workers who will shoot the prisoner and the people who will watch. Photos released by the South Carolina Department of Corrections show that the state intends to strap the prisoner, Brad Sigmon, to a metal seat in the same small, indoor brick death chamber where South Carolina has executed more than 40 other prisoners by electric chair and lethal injection since 1985.

Texas | Court stays execution of Texas man days before he was set to die by lethal injection

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas appeals court on Tuesday halted the execution of a man who has spent more than 30 years on death row and had been set to die by lethal injection this week over the killings of six girls and young women found buried in the desert near El Paso. It was the second scheduled execution in the U.S. halted on Tuesday after a federal judge stopped Louisiana’s first death row execution using nitrogen gas, which was to take place next week. In Texas, the order was another reprieve for David Leonard Wood, who in 2009 was about 24 hours away from execution when it was halted over claims he is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for execution.

Biden Commuted Their Death Sentences. Now What?

As three men challenge their commutations, others brace for imminent prison transfers and the finality of a life sentence with no chance of release. In the days after President Joe Biden commuted his death sentence, 40-year-old Rejon Taylor felt like he’d been reborn. After facing execution for virtually his entire adult life for a crime he committed at 18, he was fueled by a new sense of purpose. He was “a man on a mission,” he told me in an email on Christmas Day. “I will not squander this opportunity of mercy, of life.”

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog