Yep, you read that right. According to Solitary Watch:
The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections last Friday sued every inmate on death row, in an effort to block any one of them from challenging the state’s lethal injection procedures. Each of the 84 prisoners in the “death house” at Angola State Penitentiary was personally served papers in the suit.
My God. After being arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of their lives on Death Row before being put to death by their own government, these prisoners are now being sued to prevent them from using the legal system to challenge this highly controversial procedure?
This news is particularly disgusting considering the controversy surrounding lethal injection. Again from Solitary Watch:
According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, “Since the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976, Orleans Parish juries have condemned 38 defendants to death. But a recent tally by attorneys for death-row inmates calculated that courts have found errors in 25 of those sentences, or nearly two-thirds. In some cases defendants were retried, resulting in convictions on lesser charges, while in others defendants were released.”
Perhaps we should be spending public tax dollars on investigating such an incredible error-rate instead of suing inmates who are already being put to death.
When will this country end its obsession with punishment, incarceration and inhumane treatment of its own people?
