Judge to decide if death-row inmates need air conditioning

[WhiteTara]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-decide-death-row-inmates-air-conditioning-175031388.html?nhp=1

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — As summer approaches in Louisiana, prison officials insist that ice, fans and cold showers are enough to protect death-row inmates from dangerous heat and humidity.

If not, a federal judge may order them to install air conditioning for inmates awaiting execution at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson expressed frustration Friday as he questioned why prison officials won't spend roughly $1 million to install air conditioning on death row, since the state has already spent much more to fight the matter in court. He scheduled a June 15 hearing for testimony about the effectiveness of the prison's current heat-control measures.

Jackson already has ruled it unconstitutional to keep inmates where the heat index exceeds 88 degrees. During the summer, the heat index on death row routinely soars above 100 as temperatures and humidity levels rise.

Jackson said it is "stunning" how much the state has spent defending itself for three years now against this request from three death-row inmates with medical problems. Louisiana has struggled to close repeated budget shortfalls, and yet the judge said the state may have spent tens of millions of dollars on outside attorneys and experts, heat monitoring and other costs of litigation.

[PatrickforO]

1. You know, the idea that we provide humane treatment to condemned people

has been scoffed at for centuries. Why, in the Inquisition, the Holy Fathers would get going torturing their victims. The idea was that since the church was infallible, anyone who fell into the hands of the Inquisition was guilty and the torture was more to eke out every last confession of the most minor sin than to punish. The Holy Fathers, after all, figured that the heretics were going to experience agonizing torture for eternity in hell so heck, why not get started right away?

These inmates on death row don't need no medical care! That's for liberal wussies. No A/C or TV. Nothing but a mattress, a toilet and a sink. Hey, haven't we been PRIVATIZING our prisons??? Profit is FAR more important than the welfare of mere prisoners!

[WhiteTara]

2. It's a sad fact.

[uppityperson]

3. That's be great, if they could have air conditioning.

Even on death row, torture is not good.

[Shandris]

4. Our culture breeds cruelty to others in exchange for protecting one's own comfort.

Apathy is truly the opposite of good, and as such is equivalent to the purest definition of evil.

[Nye Bevan]

5. This is where I am a true "bleeding heart liberal".

Without even starting on why the death penalty is an immoral, error-prone, racially biased, economically discriminatory barbarity, all inmates should serve their sentences in safe and humane conditions. And if the prison governor's office is air-conditioned the cells should be too.

[Frustratedlady]

6. It is hard to believe our prison system has dropped this far into the pit.

I don't know anyone who has ever been in prison or headed in that direction, but I can't imagine any prison cutting air conditioning would even be a consideration for saving money. (I imagine privately-run prisons cut corners we would never imagine possible.) If this is being done for death row inmates only, they might as well cut their food, too. They'll be dead in a couple years...why waste all those meals?

I can't believe how low society has fallen.