Death Penalty News

Record temperatures in much of the U.S. threatening more people in prisons. Sweltering doesn’t even describe it. This week, more than a third of the U.S. population was under excessive heat warnings and heat advisories . Dozens of major cities and states have set new temperature records in recent weeks , including Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which logged its hottest June ever . Less than an hour from the city is Louisiana State Penitentiary, better known as Angola prison, where the state set up a temporary youth jail last fall , in a building that once housed adults awaiting execution.

A 6-year-old lawsuit that claims high heat indexes on Louisiana's death row subjects 3 ailing condemned killers to cruel and unusual punishment, and leaves them at risk of serious illness or even death, has been conditionally dismissed by a federal judge in Baton Rouge. U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson's final dismissal of the suit is conditioned upon the state remaining in "substantial compliance" for one year with a settlement agreement signed last November by attorneys for the three prisoners and the state Department of Corrections. Jackson, who last month granted a joint request to conditionally dismiss the 2013 civil rights lawsuit, could make that dismissal final this November. The settlement agreement calls for daily showers for the three Angola inmates of at least 15 minutes; individual ice containers that are timely replenished by prison staff; individual fans; water faucets in their cells; "IcyBreeze" units or so-called "Cajun ...

The Wallace Pack Unit, Texas A group of inmates in Texas is suing the state prison system, the nation's largest, arguing that extreme heat is killing older and infirm convicts. The inmates allege it constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" and they're asking the courts for relief. The six plaintiffs are doing time in the Wallace Pack Unit, located in the humid pasturelands between Austin and Houston. Daily measurements taken by the National Weather Service show that since the beginning of this summer, the peak heat index has averaged 104 degrees [40°C]. That's outside where you might catch a breeze. Inside, inmates say the poorly ventilated, steel and concrete cellblocks are like ovens. "A lot of times it gets so hot in our dorms that we have to strip down to our boxers, and we'll just lay on the floor because it's a little bit cooler on the floor than it is trying to sit up in our bunks," says plaintiff Keith Cole, 62, who is serv...

Louisiana death row BATON ROUGE (AP) — The state of Louisiana has spent more than three years and over $1 million in taxpayer money to fight a lawsuit that claims three death row inmates are exposed to dangerous heat levels in their cells. A possible low-tech solution costs less than $2,000 and would avoid the need to install a more expensive air conditioning system inside Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, according to court testimony Monday for the long-running litigation. A court-appointed special master told U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson that the three inmates have been moved to new cells where cool air is piped in through a vent from a guard station. Prison officials also recently installed a plastic curtain to trap the cool air and equipped each inmate’s cell with “Cajun cooler” systems, described in a court filing as an ice chest, a fan and a duct that emits cool air. The special master, Paul Hebert, said temperatures in the inmates’ new cells are now “...

Louisiana death row With south Louisiana's summer heat and humidity kicking into high gear, the legal battle rages on over how to best protect 3 ailing condemned killers from extreme heat indexes on Angola's death row. In the most recent federal court filings in the 3-year-old case, attorneys for Elzie Ball, Nathaniel Code and James Magee insist air conditioning is the only way to shield them from the substantial risk of heat-related illness or worse. "Public health agencies as well as the medical community agree that exposure to air-conditioning is the only method of preventing heat-related illness and death in extreme heat," the inmates' attorneys, including lead lawyer Mercedes Montagnes with The Promise of Justice Initiative in New Orleans, argue in documents filed July 11 at Baton Rouge federal court. Attorneys for state corrections officials, however, claim their second heat remediation plan - which calls for a daily cool shower and addition...

Louisiana's death row When Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson toured the Louisiana State Penitentiary in the summer of 2013, he ruled several months later that the high heat and humidity on death row violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and he ordered state corrections officials not to let heat indexes top 88 degrees. On the heels of recorded heat indexes already exceeding the 88-degree mark five times between May 12 and May 25 on Angola's death row, Jackson is scheduled to make a return trip to the maximum-security prison Friday. His site visit comes as a key federal court hearing looms June 15 in the long-running case of three ailing Louisiana death-row inmates who sued the state in 2013 over extreme heat indexes where they are housed. Attorneys for the condemned killers contend the state's second court-ordered heat remediation plan has utterly failed -- a contention the state flatly rejects -- and they're asking Jackso...

Angola's Death Row Sensors have been installed on the death-row tiers at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola to monitor summertime heat indexes that several ailing condemned killers successfully claimed violate their constitutional rights and increase their risk of heatstroke or even death, newly filed federal court documents show. The heat and humidity sensors, which will calculate the heat index using a National Weather Service formula, will measure heat indexes from April 1 through Oct. 31 as ordered by Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson, of Baton Rouge, in response to a lawsuit inmates filed against state corrections officials in 2013. Those officials have provided court-appointed special master Paul Hebert with a laptop computer that gives him direct daily access to the temperature and relative humidity data on each death-row tier, according to the state's revised 2nd heat remediation plan. Jackson accepted the 2nd plan last month. As part...

When it comes to the death penalty, Louisiana can't seem to keep up. Michael Wearry just became our 58th death row inmate to have his conviction overturned since 2000. Over the same period, Louisiana juries handed down just 54 new death sentences. Death row will become depopulated if this goes on. Not, however, for quite some time, because we still have 79 under sentence of death at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and two at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women. One way we hardly ever reduce the numbers is by carrying out an execution. We have managed only three since 2000, and it might have been two if Gerald Bordelon had not declined to appeal in 2010. Meanwhile, 4 condemned men have died of natural causes. The condemned know that old age will probably get them first; they wouldn't give a hoot about air conditioning on death row if they expected to be dispatched any time soon. Wearry will get a retrial now that the U.S. Supreme Cour...

BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana corrections officials want a federal judge to reduce the nearly $890,000 that a team of lawyers is requesting in a lawsuit over hot conditions on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. The Advocate reports the attorneys for Elzie Ball, Nathaniel Code and James Magee are asking Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson to order the state to pay the attorneys $795,550 in fees and another $92,000-plus in costs. Lawyers for the state claim in court documents that the billing records for the inmates attorneys are "compromised by vague entries, imprecise record-keeping, duplicative work and unreasonable time expended without adequate justification." The judge has given the inmates' attorneys until Jan. 13 to respond to the state's opposition. Source: nola.com , December 30, 2015 - Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com - Follow us on Facebook and Twitter

Three ailing condemned killers who claim Louisiana’s death row is unbearably hot can look forward to a daily cool shower, personal ice chests and more fans.  But state corrections officials say opening the death-row tier doors to let cooler air flow from the guard pod is a bad idea from both an engineering and security standpoint. In the latest heat remediation plan submitted by state corrections officials to Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson, The Advocate reports attorneys say opening the death-row tier doors to draw cool air from the air-conditioned guard pod would overload the building’s existing air conditioning system and cause it to fail. The state’s first court-ordered heat remediation plan included air conditioning, ice chests filled with ice, and once-daily cool showers. Source: The Associated Press, November 2, 2015 Related articles: No A/C for death row inmates at Angola: decision made final , Nola, Emily Lane, August 17, 2015 Louisiana inmat...

Death row inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary who claimed in a federal lawsuit that triple-digit temperatures inside their cells at Angola amounts to cruel and unusual punishment have been denied a rehearing of their case. The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals not to re-examine the case, which was handed down Friday (Aug. 14), upheld a decision delivered July 8 by a three-judge 5th Circuit panel. The July 8 decision found heat indices reaching up to 108 inside the inmates' cells did, in fact, violate the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. However, the panel explained in its July 8 decision, the prison should not be required to install air-conditioning on death row to remedy the violation. U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson had earlier ruled the conditions were unconstitutional and ordered the state to create and implement a plan, which included air conditioning, for cooling off death row. The state appealed Jackson's decision, but in th...

A federal judge ordered heat indexes on death row at the Angola prison not top 88 degrees (31° C) from April through October. State corrections officials complained last fall to a federal appellate court that a Baton Rouge federal judge was micromanaging the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola by ordering heat indexes on death row at the Angola prison not top 88 degrees (31° C) from April through October. Now, the 3 death-row inmates whose 2013 lawsuit against the state prompted Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson's December order are claiming the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also is trying to micromanage the prison. A 3-judge 5th Circuit panel ruled last month that Jackson's order effectively required the state to air-condition death row. The panel sent the case back to the judge to consider other remedies to correct the state's violation of the 3 condemned prisoners' constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Those pr...

Louisiana death row Death row inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary have lost their latest legal battle for relief from triple-digit temperatures inside their cells at Angola. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a  ruling Wednesday (July 8) against three inmates who argued the sweltering conditions on death row constitute cruel and unusual punishment.  The death row inmates originally filed the lawsuit against the state in 2013, saying the conditions were unconstitutional. The suit alleged that heat indices, or measurements of how hot it feels, on death row had reached 172 degrees in 2012 and 195 degrees in 2011. "I feel like I'm on fire or something," one of the three plaintiffs in the case, death row inmate Nathaniel Code, 57, testified in August 2013 . "I mostly just try to be as still as possible." Wednesday's ruling from the 5th Circuit's overturns U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson's December ruling. Jackson'...

Kalynda Davis, Peter Gardner Hours before the Bali 9 duo were shot dead, another young Australian man came a step closer to facing execution overseas. Sydney man Peter Gardner, 25, has had his death penalty case in a Chinese courtroom brought forward by almost 6 months and will go on trial in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou next Thursday, May 7, for allegedly attempting to export 30kg of methamphetamine, or ice. Gardner's lawyer, New Zealand barrister Craig Tuck, said the reasons for the fast-tracked trial were unknown. China executes thousands of people every year according to Amnesty International, and has killed at least a dozen foreign nationals in the past 15 years. The opaque Chinese legal system operates on 3 levels: police, prosecutors and courts - all come under the control of the nation's ruling Communist Party. Once cases are passed to the courts, conviction rates are 99 % and Gardner's lawyers have previously said his fate all but certa...

Louisiana Death Row NEW ORLEANS -- A U.S. Supreme Court justice has refused to intervene in an ongoing case about hot conditions on Death Row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. The case involves a suit filed on behalf of three Death Row inmates. It resulted in last year's ruling by a federal judge in Baton Rouge that Death Row gets so hot it violates U.S. constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The judge ordered prison officials to develop a plan for cooling the facilities where condemned killers are held. However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal put the order on hold in June while state prison officials appeal. The three inmates asked the Supreme Court to vacate that stay. On Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia denied the inmates' application without comment. Source: AP, July 3, 2014 Related articles: - Louisiana Appeals court halts Angola death row temp changes Jun 8, 2014 ... A recent order by ...

Meriam Ibrahim and her husband Sudanese jailers removed the chains from a Christian woman, sentenced to death for apostasy, after she gave birth in prison last month, one of her lawyers said Tuesday. The case of Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag sparked an outcry from Western governments and rights groups after a judge sentenced her on May 15 to hang. Born to a Muslim father, she was convicted under Islamic sharia law that has been in force in Sudan since 1983 and outlaws conversions on pain of death. 12 days after the verdict, Ishag gave birth to a daughter at the women's prison in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman. "They removed the chains" after she delivered, one of her lawyers, Mohanad Mustafa, told AFP. "This is on order by the doctor." Sudanese law requires anyone sentenced to death to be shackled but Mustafa said he did not think they would be put back on again. After the delivery, Ishag was moved to the prison clinic from a ...

Louisiana Death Row: 172 degrees in 2013, 195 degrees in 2011 A recent order by a federal judge in Baton Rouge requiring the state to immediately begin lowering the temperature at Louisiana State Penitentiary's death row was postponed Friday by a ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Advocate reports the decision means the state will not be forced to quickly implement a court-ordered plan to cool down the death row quarters at Angola until an appeals panel has had a chance to review U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson's decision. Three death row inmates - Elzie Ball, 60; James Magee, 35; and Nathaniel Code, 57 - sued the state in June 2013 alleging that heat indices, or measurements of how hot it feels, on death row had reached 172 degrees (77,7° C) last year and 195 degrees (90,5° C) in 2011. Jackson ruled in December that the sweltering conditions at the prison amounted to a constitutional violation of the prohibition on cruel and unusual puni...