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Mississippi Lawsuit Opens Over Death Row Conditions

By Jeralyn, Section Inmates and Prisons
Posted on Fri Feb 14, 2003 at 12:09:19 PM EST
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A hearing began yesterday on a lawsuit brought against the Mississippi Department of Corrections by six death row inmates and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The suit alleges that MDOC officials have knowingly subjected death row inmates to inhumane conditions leading to pain, suffering and mental instability and violated their constitutional rights...

Death row inmate William Holly said he knows he is not on Unit 32 at Mississippi State Penitentiary to be made comfortable, "but I didn't know it involved torture.".."There is the filth, with feces bubbling up in my toilet when those next to me flush their toilet," said Holly, 28.

Expert witness James J. Balsimo...testified that insects, filth, lack of water and showers, high temperatures and a lack of fans are among the shortcomings.

He also criticized the absence of a maintenance schedule to prevent water and sewer failures. Balsimo said the lack of a maintenance plan was evident when Unit 32 was without water and sewer for almost a week in June 2002.

"They gave inmates a small cup of water only with their meals, they took no showers and flushed the toilets only once a day," Balsimo said. "That puts inmates and corrections officers and those with medical conditions at extreme risk and is totally unacceptable."
Holly and another inmated testified that
... inmates have arrived able to communicate but now suffer mental disorders. Holly said that the inmates in the cell next to him are so deranged and make so much noise it is like being in a day-care center with "two older, unruly children."
Support the ACLU so they can keep up the good fight and expand it to other states. A death sentence does not give the Government the right to impose barbaric conditions on inmates. Indiana has seen the light and is is about to begin a $4.5 million renovation of it's death row.
The work comes amid growing attention to conditions on the nation's death rows. Pennsylvania prisoners awaiting execution held a hunger strike last week for improvements in sanitation and other conditions. And at San Quentin State Prison in California, officials this week made a pitch for $220 million to build a new Death Row.
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