National Roundup

Pennsylvania
State agrees to upgrade inmates’ death row conditions
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s prison agency agreed to improve death row conditions under a settlement announced Monday of a federal lawsuit that called the inmates’ living standards degrading and inhumane.

Lawyers for the inmates who sued said the agreement provides people on death row with at least 42½ hours a week out of their cell, daily access to phones and contact visits with their families, lawyers and religious advisers.

A Wolf administration spokesman confirmed the settlement and said many of the agreement’s changes have already been adopted.

The deal also limits the use of strip searches, shackling and other restraints unless temporarily needed.

Death row inmates who have been psychologically damaged by long periods in solitary confinement will be evaluated and offered help adapting to a general population setting.

The state will continue to house inmates who were sentenced to death in two facilities, the Phoenix and Greene state prisons.

The federal lawsuit filed nearly two years ago sought an end to mandatory, indefinite solitary confinement for the 136 men currently on death row in the state.

“The use of long-term solitary confinement on anyone is torture,” Amy Fettig, deputy director of the National Prison Project, said in a release.

The lawsuit said death row inmates were spending 22 to 24 hours a day locked up alone, in small cells that were illuminated at all hours.

They could exercise in small, outdoor enclosures for no more than two hours during weekdays but were confined to their cells on weekends, unless they had visitors. They changed cells every three months.

Pennsylvania has executed three people since 1976, all of whom voluntarily gave up on their appeals.

The state’s death row has been shrinking, as fewer death sentences are being imposed and appeals have resulted in some death row inmates being resentenced to life. The death row population has fallen by about 20 people over the last two years.

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf implemented a death penalty moratorium soon after taking office five years ago.

Arizona
Jury rules for half of 21 plaintiffs in used body parts suit
PHOENIX (AP) — The owner of a now-closed body donation facility was found civilly liable Tuesday for mishandling remains in about half of 21 cases filed by families of the dead.

A jury awarded $58 million to 10 of 21 plaintiffs in the case against Stephen Gore, owner of the Biological Resource Center of Arizona. The jury awarded $8 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages. It was not immediately clear why the jury did not rule in favor of 11 of the plaintiffs.

Gore’s business was accused of committing fraud by claiming the donated bodies would be used for medical research, when in at least two cases it knew the human remains would be sold for use in destructive military testing.

The lawsuit also alleged that donor families who were promised the cremated remains of relatives received boxes with what they thought were their loved ones, but later discovered the bodies were sold to third parties or were still at the facility.

The families contended they were weren’t told that the bodies would be cut up, sold to third parties for profit and used in ways that they wouldn’t have approved. During the three-week trial, jurors were shown the business’ price list, showing, for instance, that a torso without a head went for $4,000.

Gore’s attorney had said the facility’s clients signed consent forms granting permission to dissect donated bodies, and that it was legal for the facility to make a profit.

Lawyers representing the donor families had asked for $13 million for each plaintiff but acknowledged before the verdict was delivered that Gore wouldn’t likely be able to pay any large financial award. But they said it was still worth bringing the case to trial to hold Gore and his business accountable.

Cadaver donation companies distribute remains to universities, medical device manufacturers and drug companies. The companies pay the associated costs and use the bodies for medical education and research, and families save burial or cremation costs.

The body donation facility in Phoenix was raided in January 2014 by FBI employees wearing hazardous-material suits, leading to the gruesome discoveries.

A retired FBI agent testified that body parts were piled on top of each other throughout the facility and had no identification. The agent said he saw one torso had its head removed and a smaller head sewn on, comparing the discovery to a character from Frankenstein.

Though Gore has denied the allegations within the lawsuit, he acknowledged when pleading guilty to illegally conducting an enterprise that his firm provided vendors with human tissue that was contaminated and used the donations in ways that went against the wishes of the donors.

In a letter to the sentencing judge, Gore said he should have been more involved in the supervision of his employees and could have been more open about the donation process on his company’s brochure.

Alabama
Lawyer for ex-astronaut charged in crash blames Ambien
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A former space shuttle commander charged in the traffic deaths of two girls in Alabama was having an abnormal reaction to sleep medication at the time of the crash, his lawyer said.

Jim Sturdivant, an attorney for retired astronaut James Halsell Jr., told WAAY-TV in a Monday report that the two-car wreck was a “sleep-driving episode” caused by Ambien, also known as zolpidem.

Halsell, 63, of Huntsville had an “abnormal response” to the medication, Sturdivant said.

“It is not uncommon for zolpidem or Ambien to render a person incapable of controlling their actions and totally unaware of their behavior,” he said. “While Col. Halsell deeply regrets the tragedy this incident created, he is innocent of the charge that is being brought against him by the Tuscaloosa County district attorney’s office.”

Halsell is awaiting trial on reckless murder charges.

Authorities allege he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol in 2016, when the wreck in Tuscaloosa County killed 11-year-old Niomi Deona James and 13-year-old Jayla Latrick Parler.

The crash happened about 2:50 a.m. on a highway that Halsell mistook for Interstate 20/59, authorities have said. An investigation showed he was intoxicated from alcohol and sleeping pills.

Troopers said at the time that a vehicle driven by Halsell collided with a Ford Fiesta in which the girls were riding. Authorities said their father and a woman were with them. Documents show Halsell told authorities he had been driving to Louisiana to pick up his son.

He has pleaded not guilty.

A judge has set Halsell’s reckless murder trial for Dec. 9.