5 companies compete to build new Alabama prisons
Five companies have expressed interest in building new prisons for the state of Alabama, the governor’s office announced Monday, as a prison construction plan inches forward. Gov. Kay Ivey’s office said five firms responded to a “request for qualifications” to build the three proposed prisons that would house 3,000 or more inmates each. Ivey’s press office said the firms are The GEO Group, Corvias, Corrections Consultants, CoreCivic and Alabama Prison Transformation Partners. GEO and CoreCivic are the nation’s two largest private prison companies. Although some of the companies are well-known names in corrections, little is known about one of the firms. The Alabama secretary of state’s website did not have records for a company called Alabama Prison Transformation Partners. In February, Ivey announced a plan to build three new large prisons to replace most state prisons. She has said state officials will first gather proposals and then decide how to proceed. The administration says the state could lease the prisons. Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton wrote in an email that the prison system will evaluate the companies’ qualifications. The prison system will ask the companies for proposals in the fall with intention of receiving proposals in the first part of 2020, he wrote. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Judge: Alabama has been ‘indifferent’ to isolated inmates
A federal judge said Monday that Alabama has been “deliberately indifferent” about monitoring the mental health of state inmates placed in the isolation of segregation cells. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson issued the ruling days after attorneys for inmates said the suicide rate in state prisons has reached a crisis level. “The court finds that the (Alabama prison system’s) failure to provide adequate periodic mental-health assessments of prisoners in segregation creates a substantial risk of serious harm for those prisoners,” Thompson wrote in the 66-page order. Thompson wrote that prison officials have been “deliberately indifferent with regard to their failure to provide adequate periodic evaluations of mental health to prisoners in segregation.” Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton said the department is reviewing the decision. Thompson in 2017 wrote that mental health care in state prisons was “horrendously inadequate” and violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In his Monday order, Thompson said the failure to adequately monitor inmates in segregation contributes to the unconstitutional conditions. Thompson directed the prison system and attorneys for inmates to confer on how to proceed. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing inmates in the ongoing class-action lawsuit over prison mental health care, praised the decision. “It has been evident for years that ADOC has failed to identify, monitor, and properly care for people who have serious mental illnesses and who develop them in ADOC custody. That systematic failure has led to needless suffering, especially for people in segregation,” said Maria Morris, senior supervising attorney at the SPLC. The advocacy organization said Friday that there have been 13 suicides in 14 months. “People are killing themselves in our prisons because conditions are horrendous,” Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen said at a news conference with the families of inmates. The prison system said in a response Friday that it was working to address the issue, and said the suicide spike “calls into question the long-term effectiveness of the suicide prevention measures proposed by the SPLC” during the litigation. Republished with permission from the Associated Press
Supreme Court: Execution of Muslim inmate can proceed
he U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday rejected claims from a Muslim inmate who said his religious rights were being violated, clearing the way for the lethal injection to go forward Thursday night. In a 5-4 decision, justices vacated a stay issued by a lower court that had been blocking the execution of Dominique Ray, 42. Ray argued Alabama’s execution procedure favors Christian inmates because a Christian chaplain employed by the prison typically remains in the execution chamber during a lethal injection, but the state would not let his imam be present. Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent that the dissenting justice considered the decision to let the execution go forward “profoundly wrong.” Attorneys for the state said Ray had ample opportunity to visit with his imam before his scheduled execution, that only prison employees are allowed in the chamber for security reasons, and that the imam can visit him before he’s led to the execution chamber and witness the execution from an adjoining room. Prison system spokesman Bob Horton said Ray was visited by his imam both Wednesday and Thursday and that Ray again renewed a request to have the adviser present — the request that has been denied. Other states generally allow spiritual advisers to accompany condemned inmates up to the execution chamber but not into it, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which studies capital punishment in the United States. Durham said did not know of any other state where the execution protocol calls for a Christian chaplain to be present in the execution chamber. Ray was sentenced to death for the slaying of 15-year-old Tiffany Harville. The girl disappeared from her Selma home in July 1995, and her decomposing body was found in a cotton field a month later. Ray was convicted in 1999 after another man, Marcus Owden, confessed to his role in the crime and implicated Ray. Owden told police that they had picked the girl up for a night out on the town and then raped her. Owden said that Ray cut the girl’s throat. Owden pleaded guilty to murder, testified against Ray and is serving a life sentence without parole. A jury recommended the death penalty for Ray by an 11-1 vote. Ray’s attorneys had also asked in legal filings to stay the execution on other grounds. Lawyers say it was not disclosed to the defense team that records from a state psychiatric facility suggested Owden suffered from schizophrenia and delusions. The Supreme Court also rejected that claim Thursday. Republished with permission from the Associated Press
Lethal injection or gas? Alabama’s death row gets to choose
Some say inhaling nitrogen gas would be like dying on a plane that depressurizes in flight, swiftly killing all aboard. Now more than a quarter of Alabama’s death row inmates have signed statements saying they would prefer that gas over lethal injection or the electric chair when facing execution. No inmate in the U.S. has been put to death with nitrogen gas before, and critics suspect at least some inmates are simply hoping to delay a date with the death chamber through the inevitable legal challenges ahead. State corrections officials say 51 of Alabama’s 180 inmates have chosen nitrogen hypoxia, allowed a choice after Alabama lawmakers voted this year to authorize that alternative execution method. With difficulties obtaining execution drugs and litigation arising over claims of botched and horribly painful chemical injections this decade, Alabama is not alone as it joins Oklahoma and Mississippi in exploring that as a potential alternative. John Palombi, an attorney with the Federal Defenders Program, said his group advised inmates to request the uncertainties of nitrogen gas over what he called the known “torture” of Alabama’s three-drug cocktail. They had a June 30 deadline to make a choice. “Our decision to have our clients opt into use of nitrogen hypoxia was based on our belief that a three drug lethal injection protocol … is torturous and has tortured our clients,” Palombi wrote in an email, citing last year’s execution of Torrey McNabb and Ronald Smith Jr.’s the year before. While being sedated in the death chamber for the 1994 killing of a convenience store clerk, Smith coughed and heaved repeatedly for 13 minutes. His attorneys witnessed the execution and said his movements showed he was “not anesthetized at any point during the agonizingly long procedure.” Lawyers for McNabb said his final moments were inhumanely painful as he rolled his head back and forth while being executed for a police officer’s 1997 slaying. State officials disputed that anything went wrong either time. Bob Horton of the Alabama Department of Corrections gave no time estimate for when the alternative method would be ready. But the spokesman assured in an email that the department “will have a protocol in place before the state carries out executions by nitrogen.” Republican state Sen. Trip Pittman, sponsor of Alabama’s legislation, believes nitrogen will prove more humane. He spoke of how aircraft passengers have passed out and died from a sudden plane depressurization. While nitrogen gas isn’t itself poisonous, anyone breathing it without breathing oxygen will lose consciousness and die from lack of oxygen. “The person will pass out and ultimately pass,” said Pittman. Much of what is known about death by nitrogen comes from research, industrial accidents and suicides. It’s not even clear how nitrogen would be delivered, whether via some type of mask or breathing apparatus. “This is entirely experimental,” said Randall Marshall, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama. “It is the epitome of cruel and usual punish because it is experimenting on human beings.” State Sen. Cam Ward said he thinks some inmates signed for nitrogen gas because lengthy challenges are foreseen. “Some of them, not all of them, are probably litigating this to avoid the death penalty,” said Ward, who chairs Alabama’s legislative committee that oversees state prisons. But he added other inmates probably believe inhaling nitrogen gas could be a better way to die: “I think they’ve seen stories of where the three-drug cocktail lethal injection has failed and there’s that fear of it being a botched process as opposed to nitrogen.” In neighboring Mississippi, officials have authorized nitrogen hypoxia for executions in the event lethal injection is held unconstitutional or becomes “unavailable.” No actual plans to begin using gas have been announced, however, and the state hasn’t executed anyone since 2012, partly because a legal challenge to its lethal injection procedure continues. Elsewhere, Oklahoma officials announced in March that the state will develop protocols to use nitrogen gas to execute inmates because of the problems obtaining lethal injection drugs. Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said at the time that, “we can no longer sit on the sidelines and wait on the drugs.” Litigation over Alabama’s lethal injection method ended as the inmates opted for nitrogen. Alabama last month agreed to dismiss a lawsuit challenging lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment because the eight inmate plaintiffs in the case had opted for nitrogen gas. The claims challenging the state’s lethal injection process as inhumane are now moot, “because their executions will be carried out at the appropriate time by nitrogen hypoxia,” attorneys wrote in a motion to the court. However, Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said he expects litigation over the use of nitrogen gas. He said Oklahoma’s execution process is currently subject to a federal court order. He noted that Alabama prisoners who selected nitrogen didn’t relinquish rights to challenge nitrogen gas or any other execution method. “Execution by nitrogen hypoxia has never been tried before and there are different potential dangers … I think it is highly likely that there will be challenges,” Dunham said. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Warden testifies in trial over prisons’ mental health care
In late February, Alabama prison inmate Billy Lee Thornton stepped onto his cell bed, put a shoe string around his neck and hung himself from the light fixture, according to an incident report written by a correctional officer who witnessed the incident. The correctional officer, who had been at the door of Thornton’s segregated cell talking with him about medication, immediately called for help. As two officers rushed into the cell at Holman Correctional Facility and reached for Thornton, the string broke and Thornton fell, hitting his head. Thornton was rushed to the hospital. Four days later he was taken off life support. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson, who last year ruled that Alabama provides “horrendously inadequate” mental health care to state inmates, ordered a Monday hearing on the circumstances of Thornton’s death and the death of another inmate. Holman Warden Cynthia Stewart testified Monday in federal court that Thornton was placed on mental health observation but not a suicide watch after a previous attempt to kill himself. Thornton was on the prison’s mental health caseload and had already attempted to hang himself on Dec. 27, 2017. A mental health evaluation presented to the court described him as hearing voices that told him to kill himself. He was placed under mental health observation, not a suicide watch, and stayed in a crisis cell under more intense supervision until Jan. 4. The plaintiff’s attorney Maria Morris said there is no documentation to show that Thornton received a mental health check 30 days after his release from the crisis cell. The 30-day check is required under a January 2017 court order that outlines a plan to protect possibly suicidal prisoners. After receiving another mental health evaluation where he was again described as having suicidal thoughts, Thornton was placed in a crisis cell on Feb. 22. He was released one day later. Morris said no documents show he received another mental health check before his death. Stewart said she didn’t know at the time about Thornton’s first suicide attempt. Bob Horton, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections, wrote in an email that the department is continuing to “investigate and evaluate the circumstances surrounding the death of the inmate at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility.” “This evaluation will include a review of actions of our contracted mental health staff and our correctional staff and whether those actions complied with departmental policy as well as any outstanding directives from the federal court,” Horton wrote. The department said the incident was currently classified as an attempted suicide. “I think today showed the Department of Corrections continues to leave prisoners who have severe mental health needs and have shown signs of dramatic decompensation in segregation at risk of harms to themselves without proper monitoring or treatment,” Morris said. Thornton was 31 when he died. His sister Taneisha Head, 29, was present at Monday’s hearing. “We’re just here for the truth,” she said. She said he never had a history of mental illness. “I knew my brother. He was coming home,” she told The Associated Press. “I told him we can’t wait till he comes home, and we can ride around in my new car and listen to blues.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
$300 million to corrupt firm? Auditor Jim Zeigler says no
Alabama is no stranger to political corruption charges. The state has seen elected officials at every level of government charged and found guilty of crimes. In what some perceive as a tone-deaf move, the state is moving forward to contract with Wexford Health Sources — a company that has found itself in the middle of a bribery case in neighboring Mississippi. Wexford has been named in a suit brought forth by the Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood to recoup funds and damages related to bribery charges that sent the former Mississippi Corrections Commissioner, Chris Epps, to jail for 20 years. And now, the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) will bring a contract — for prison medical and mental health services — with Wexford to the to the legislature’s Contracts Review Committee on March 1 for approval. The contract, effective April 1, 2018 states Wexford “will provide comprehensive healthcare including both medical and mental health care and management services to State inmates in accordance to applicable laws” through Sept. 30, 2020 for a sum of $360,471,062. [Copy of DOC-Wexford contract] Alabama Today reached out to Bob Horton, Public Information Manager at the State Department of Corrections, for comment on Monday, regarding the contract but has yet to hear back from him. But according to the Associated Press, Horton claims Wexford had not been accused of any wrongdoing when the state decided to sign a contract with them. “When the pick was made that ‘Wexford Health has not been accused of any wronging and the department is confident the review committee selected the right company for the health care contract,” Horton told the AP. On Tuesday, State Auditor Jim Zeigler requested the committee order “the maximum delay allowed by law” on the proposed contract. Zeigler says considering the fact Alabama is under federal court order to improve poor prison conditions for inmates, it would irresponsible to enter into a contract with the company without knowing the court’s final decision in the case. “The State of Alabama has been found liable in a federal lawsuit concerning prison mental health,” Zeigler said in a statement. “We are now awaiting the court’s final decision on the remedies to be required. To enter into the proposed contract now without knowing what the federal court will require is irresponsible.” Zeigler continued, “If this committee orders the maximum delay allowed by law, it will give me time to reason with the Department of Corrections to wait to see what steps will be ordered by the court in this matter. Allowing this contract to go forward without knowing what the court will require is simply premature.” Wexford complaint in Mississippi:
