Virginia prisoners awaiting execution are housed in a segregated area of Sussex I State Prison. “Death Row” at the prison consists of 44 cells that are less than half the size of a parking space, with minimal natural light and artificial light which remains on at all hours. Prisoners are separated by at least one empty cell, making communication between prisoners nearly impossible amidst near-isolation. Moreover, until August 2015, prisoners were held alone in their cells for 23 hours per day – often all day on weekend, ate all of their meals alone in their cells and were denied any opportunity for group religious activity or recreation. These Death Row conditions were found by the courts to be “dehumanizing” and “undeniably severe.”
In November 2014, four Death Row inmates, represented by pro bono attorneys, filed a lawsuit in federal district court asserting that the conditions of their confinement violated the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.” VDOC officials defended the Death Row conditions as constitutional and necessary to preserve prison security. However, 20 months later, in the midst of the lawsuit, VDOC enacted regulations allowing for Death Row prisoners to have contact visits with close family, engage in recreational group activities, and access a kiosk where they could purchase books and movies and send email. The district court held the prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights were violated and imposed an injunction on VDOC. VDOC appealed the lower court ruling to the Fourth Circuit, claiming that the injunction should not have been entered.
In defending the rights of the prison inmates, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute and the ACLU of Virginia asked the Fourth Circuit to reject VDOC’s appeal, warning that the VDOC may be engaging in “tactical mooting” (adopting tactical policy changes in order to avoid a binding court ruling that would prevent VDOC from returning to the dehumanizing conditions).
The opinion of the Court of Appeals in Porter v. Clarke is available here.
This press release is also available at www.rutherford.org.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated.
Source: https://bit.ly/2Zf45DY
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