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Abstract: 

In Porter v. Clarke, 923 F.3d 348 (4th Cir. 2019), a divided court held that Virginia’s death row inmates were properly found to be confined under conditions that violated the Eighth Amendment. Death row conditions for long-term detention equated with solitary confinement and were found to create a substantial risk of psychological and emotional harm and the state defendants were deliberately indifferent to that harm. About a year after this action was filed, the Corrections Department revised their approach to death row. Revised procedure and regulation provide death row with new privileges including: (1) having “contact visitation with immediate family members one day per week for one and a half hours at a time”; (2) having “non-contact visitation on weekends and holidays with immediate family members and one approved non-family member”; (3) participating in in-pod recreation with a maximum of three other offenders seven days per week for a minimum of one hour per day; (4) participating in outdoor recreation five days per week for 90 minutes per day; and (5) showering seven days per week, for up to fifteen minutes. The in-pod, congregate recreation “occur[s] in a newly screened off area of the death row pod that contain[s] a television, two tables with seating, a bench, various games, and a JPAY kiosk that enable[s] inmates to download music, purchase books and movies, and send e-mails.”

Keywords: Porter v. Clarke; Death Row Conditions

Affiliations:  1: Executive Editor.