A class action suit has been brought on behalf of the 185 male prisoners on death row in Texas, accusing the state of violating the inmates’ constitutional rights by holding them in permanent solitary confinement in some cases for more than 20 years.
The state’s prison authorities are alleged to be inflicting “cruel and unusual punishment” on the men in breach of the eighth amendment of the US constitution. The lawsuit describes how the prisoners are held in “devastating conditions” in isolation for up to 23 years without pause, with almost 80% of the death row occupants having been in solitary for more than 10 years.
“The conditions on death row in Texas have been characterized as some of the most brutal death row conditions in the country. The plaintiffs are seeking relief from conditions that have been described as torture,” said Pieter Van Tol of the global law firm Hogan Lovells which filed the suit on behalf of the men in a federal court in Houston on Thursday.
Texas is facing mounting challenges to its widespread use of solitary confinement. The state currently houses more than 3,000 prisoners in solitary, and sits at the top of the league table in the US for the number of prisoners it has detained in isolation for more than 10 years (more than 500).
Scores of Texas prisoners in general population have entered the third week of a hunger strike protesting against being confined in solitary. They are objecting to being segregated in isolation cells because of alleged association with prison gangs, with no assessment of their risk to themselves or others.
The southern state has long been among the most enthusiastic applicants of capital punishment in the US. Since the death penalty was restarted in the modern era in 1976, Texas has executed 575 men and women, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The class action suit points out that there is a wealth of scientific literature that shows that solitary confinement can cause serious and sometimes irreparable psychological and physical damage in as little as 15 days. The United Nations has categorized prolonged exposure to the conditions as a form of torture.
Yet since 1999 all male condemned prisoners in Texas have been held indefinitely in isolation at the Allan B Polunsky unit north of Houston which houses death row. “All persons sentenced to death are placed in solitary confinement and must be continuously held in isolation while they await execution,” Hogan Lovells notes.
There is no appeal.
On average, the lawsuit records, death row prisoners in Texas spend 17 years and seven months alone in their 7ft by 11ft cells until they are judicially killed. They are given nothing to engage their minds, and have inadequate access to medical care and legal counsel, the class action suit alleges.
It adds: “These prisoners sleep, eat, and live most of their lives alone in this tiny cell. At a maximum, they leave this cell only once per day when they are moved to individual concrete-and-metal cages and permitted to exercise alone.”
Four death row inmates, all of them convicted murderers, have leant their names to the suit as plaintiffs: Tony Egbuna Ford, 49, who has spent 22 years in solitary; Mark Robertson, 54, 21 years in solitary; Rickey Cummings, 33, nine years; and George Curry, 55, seven years.
Each of the plaintiffs, the suit says, has experienced the severe impacts of being held for so long in isolation. Symptoms range from nightmares and insomnia to anxiety and panic attacks, aggression and rage, paranoia, mood swings and hallucinations.
