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TEXAS (USA): DEATH ROW INMATES SUE GOVERNOR PERRY AND SENATOR WHITMIRE FOR ABUSIVE CONDITIONS
May 4, 2012: Thomas Whitaker, 32, white, an inmate on Texas death row, has filed a class action lawsuit against Texas Governor Rick Perry, Senator John Whitmire (Chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, and representative of the 15th Senatorial District comprised of north Houston and parts of Harris County), and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for the inhumane and unconstitutional conditions under which the men on death row must live.
Allegations include taking away wheelchairs from those who cannot walk, denying mental and physical health care, being held in solitary confinement for over ten years without any legal justification based on their conduct, dangerously unsafe living conditions, inadequate nutrition, inadequate exercise, denial of adequate access to telephones, destruction and loss of necessary legal documents, denial of religious freedom, denial of fair administrative process, failure to timely deliver mail including legal correspondence, and other abuses.
In 1980 in the case of Ruiz v. Estelle, Judge William Justice from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District held that conditions for the Texas prison system were unconstitutional but also held that the inmates of death row would need to bring a separate lawsuit to address their unique situation. That is the action now being taken by Whitaker. There have been acts of retaliation by TDCJ toward men who have been a part of this suit or similar litigation.
Whitaker was sentenced to death on March 8, 2007 in a murder-for-hire scheme in which he hired Chris Brashear, his college roommate, to kill his family so he could inherit the estimated $1.5 million family estate.
On Dec. 10, 2003, after Whitaker, his mother and father and his 19-year-old brother returned from a college graduation celebration dinner in Bart's honor, the family was shot down. His father survived the attack. (Source: Minutes Before Six, 04/05/2012)
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