Posted on 07/08/2015 5:15:38 PM PDT by BBell
Death row inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary have lost their latest legal battle for relief from triple-digit temperatures inside their cells at Angola.
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Wednesday (July 8) concluding that the sweltering conditions on death row do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
Three death row inmates originally filed the lawsuit against the state in 2013, saying the conditions were unconstitutional. The suit alleged that heat indices, or measurements of how hot it feels, on death row had reached 172 degrees last year and 195 degrees in 2011.
"I feel like I'm on fire or something," one of the three plaintiffs in the case, death row inmate Nathaniel Code, 57, testified in August 2013. "I mostly just try to be as still as possible."
Wednesday's ruling from the 5th Circuit's overturns U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson's December ruling. Jackson's ruling had prompted the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections to come up with a plan to cool off death row, which included installing air conditioning.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
So 17 more degrees they would be boiling?
Nathaniel Code feels like he’s on fire? Just a preview of what he will feel when he is executed or dies in prison.
Human automatic breathing function in the body shuts down somewhere around and north of 130 degrees.
I would think you would be pretty severely blistered.. and fried.. but I could be wrong.
How hot it “feels”? Cry me a river, scum.
I support the death penalty, but I don’t support housing prisoners in 172 degrees. That really is cruel and inhuman. What judge thought that was okay? To see it another way, if you house prisoners at extremely high temperatures for prolonged periods of time, you are very likely to produce prisoners with new and acute health problems, that will in turn cost the taxpayer much more in health coverage.
Piss and punk (bread & water), one book (the Bible or similar), one hour of “fresh air” per week and one large fan for the whole cell block.
That’s pretty bad.
Just shoot ‘em already.
It seems to me that if it was really that warm we would be reading about death row inmates dying of heat exhaustion.
Don’t do the killing if you need a cell that’s chilling!
Has anybody seen that old prison in Yuma? What a hell hole that must have been.
You’re mistaking the claims of a death row inmate for the truth.
“Feels like” is not IS. our soldiers in Iraq toughed it out. They can too.
post 6
You ain't seen nuttin' yet....
Yeah, the Territorial Prison in Yuma is fascinating!
If it’s true that the heat index is that high, I’d call say this constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Agreed.
We don’t treat POWs this way.
Its going to be a whole lot hotter at their final destination.
This is just a practice run.
Well hurry up and carry out the sentence and he won't have any trouble accomplishing his objective, Hell however cannot be ameliorated by staying still.
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