HOUSTON – A group of death row inmates on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit against the Texas prison system over its policy of mandatory and indefinite solitary confinement for all prisoners awaiting execution, saying it causes severe physical and psychological harm.
The lawsuit alleges that the policy severely limits their access to human interaction, medical care and legal representation as they are confined to their 8-by-12-foot cells for all but two hours a day.
“Conditions on Texas’ death row have been described as some of the most brutal death row conditions in the country. The plaintiffs in this case are seeking relief from conditions that have been described as torture,” said Pieter Van Tol, one of the inmates’ lawyers.
The class action lawsuit, filed on behalf of the 182 male death row inmates in federal court in Houston, alleges that the solitary confinement policy “addresses no legitimate security or criminal need and serves no purpose other than to increase the mental anguish” of inmates .
One of the four inmates who filed the lawsuit, Mark Robertson, 54, has spent the last 31 years on death row, 21 of them in solitary confinement.
The lawsuit states that since Robertson was placed in solitary confinement, his heart health has deteriorated, he has developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and his mental health problems have worsened.
Amanda Hernandez, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), said the agency is not commenting on pending litigation.
All male death row inmates in Texas are housed at the Polunsky Unit, which is located outside of Livingston, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northeast of Houston. The state’s seven female death row inmates who are not part of the litigation are being held in a separate prison.
The lawsuit comes as a group of Texas prisoners have been on a hunger strike since Jan. 10 to protest the state’s solitary confinement policy. It’s unclear how many took part, with activists putting the number at several hundred when the strike began and TDCJ saying there were around 70.
As of Thursday, nine were still on strike, Hernandez said, and none of the inmates involved required medical attention.
Hernandez said solitary confinement, referred to by TDCJ as “precautionary confinement,” is used for inmates who are confirmed members of dangerous prison gangs, pose escape risks or assaults, or have committed multiple serious disciplinary offenses.
Solitary confinement accounts for less than 3% of the system’s inmate population and is “used judiciously,” with procedures in place to review and appeal an inmate’s continued stay in such confinement, she added.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC that provides analysis and information on the death penalty, twelve states have automatically placed death row inmates in extended, automatic solitary confinement. As of 2017, six states including Arizona and Pennsylvaniahave ended such policies.
Currently, the case of Texas inmate Dennis Wayne Hope is before the US Supreme Court, whose attorneys are asking the Supreme Court to determine whether decades of solitary confinement may violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Hope, convicted of aggravated robbery, has been in solitary confinement since 1994 after attempting to escape.
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