The Florida Department of Corrections has decided to settle a federal class-action lawsuit challenging the department’s policy of “automatically” putting death row inmates in permanent solitary confinement.
An agreement was ironed out April 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Prisoners’ advocates say the accord will result in more humanitarian conditions for death row inmates in Florida. The settlement was outlined in a recent post on the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center’s website.
“It took five years to get here,” Ngozi Ndulue, the center’s deputy director, told the Florida Record. “The lawsuit was filed in 2017, and … we ended up with things that are beneficial not just to the people who are the prisoners but also to the prison itself as far as safety and security (are concerned).”
There’s a large body of evidence showing that long-term solitary confinement has a damaging impact on mental health and stability, according to Ndulue. As a result of the settlement, prison officials will need to have a specific security-related rationale in order to place death row inmates in long-term solitary confinement, she said.
“The Florida settlement reduces the time death row prisoners spend in individual single cells.” Ndulue said. “This doesn’t change where death row prisoners are housed, but instead it increases their available out-of-cell time.”
In addition, a prison classification team will make the decision on whether a death row prisoner is eligible for the less restrictive treatment, she said. Overall, Florida has agreed to move away from long-term solitary confinement, according to Ndulue.
Though prison officials didn’t acknowledge liability in the settlement, they have already begun to improve living conditions on death row. The agreement will require the defendants in the case to increase the inmates’ access to showers, telephones and multimedia kiosks, as well as improve access to mental health care and outdoor exercise, the settlement says.
Several other states have gone in the same direction as Florida, according to Ndulue.
“In that time period since 2017, five other states have ended their automatic solitary confinement for people on death row,” she said.
The federal court will oversee the settlement’s provisions until July 1.