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| Mississippi death row inmates want bar to improvements lifted |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 04/05/2004 |
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Attorneys for Mississippi's condemned inmates have asked a federal appeals court to lift a stay on improving conditions on the state's death row. The legal motion, filed last Wednesday in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, says rising temperatures in the Mississippi Delta will soon present a danger to the prisoners. "There remains only a few weeks before the recurrence of the extreme heat-related health hazards that the (U.S.) District Court sought to address," the motion read. "Should the stay continue in effect, plaintiffs will soon be subjected again to those extreme conditions." The New Orleans court halted an order by U.S. Magistrate Jerry A. Davis to make changes to the death row unit at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. Davis had ruled the conditions there violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Attorneys for the prisoners argued that conditions - including excessive heat, insects, the rants of insane inmates and filth from malfunctioning toilets - contribute to a high rate of mental illness on death row. Summertime heat could be deadly in the prison cells, they said. Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said last Wednesday he would have no comment on the motion. Epps has said the prison unit poses no health threat to inmates, and that the conditions there satisfied the American Correctional Association, which certified the Parchman penitentiary. Davis' ordered changes included providing inmates with ice, cool water, fans, and a daily shower when indoor temperatures reach 90 degrees; placing screens on windows; repairing "pingpong" toilets that allow waste to enter toilets from adjoining cells; improving lighting in cells; providing shade and tennis shoes for exercise; and, providing private, yearly psychiatric examinations. The 5th Circuit ordered the stay in November at the request of the MDOC while the appeals court considered an appeal. Last Wednesday's motion asks the stay be lifted so Davis can determine whether the order should be modified or enforce the order "to address the extraordinarily high risks to the plaintiffs of heat-related permanent injury or death." |
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