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USA - Texas. Less Restrictive Conditions for Some on Death Row

July 22, 2025:

July 22, 2025 - Texas. Less Restrictive Conditions for Some on Death Row

Pilot Program Allows for Less Restrictive Conditions for Some on Death Row for First Time in Decades

Recent reporting from the Houston Chronicle describes a pilot program begun in February of last year which has allowed a select group of prisoners on Texas’ death row the opportunity to experience loosened confinement conditions. About a dozen individuals on Texas’ death row are being allowed to mingle in a common room, share meals, and spend time outside of their cells without handcuffs or shackles. As the Chronicle reports, “instead of shouting to each other through cell vents and meal slots, they can lock eyes with their friends when they speak.” Since 1998, following a death row escape, Texas prison officials have held those on the state’s death row in solitary confinement and denied them access to prison jobs and rehabilitative programs.

“Not having human contact exacerbates mental health issues, and locking people in cages like animals makes those issues worse, not better.”

Catherine Bratic, attorney representing Texas death row prisoners in claim challenging solitary confinement.

According to Daniel Dickerson, former Texas death row prison warden who urged the creation of this pilot, programs of this kind encourage good behavior. But it also helps improve mental health. Since its start, prison officials have not reported any fights or escapes, drug overdoses or seizures — problems prevalent in the general population. Studies show that long-term stays in solitary confinement lead to “memory problems, panic attacks, paranoia and psychosis” as well as an increased risk of early death and self-harm. The United Nations has stated prolonged or indefinite solitary confinement amounts to torture, but most prisoners sentenced to death in the U.S. are confined to these conditions for years. The Chronicle reports that some of the men in the program have “seen improvements in their friends’ mental health, with fewer signs of the paranoia and hallucinations that research shows extreme isolation can exacerbate.”

One participant in the program, Rudy Medrano, on Texas’ death row since 2005, told the Chronicle that “all of these changes have given guys hope.” Mr. Medrano said he “would rather be in a barn with farm animals than the way it was” on death row, adding “it was just dark.” Like Mr. Medrano, Robert Roberson, who has spent t2 decades in solitary confinement despite maintaining his innocence in the 2002 death of his daughter, says the program has been impactful, and “made [him] feel a little bit human again after all these years.”

Texas is not the first state in recent years to loosen solitary confinement restrictions for those on death row. As of 2020, a dozen states routinely kept death-sentenced prisoners in single cells for at least 22 hours a day with little-to-no human contact. In 2024 in Tennessee, Christa Pike, who had been held in functional solitary confinement for 28 years as the only woman on the state’s death row, reached a settlement with the state that would allow her to work and socialize with other women in the general prison population. In 2019, the South Carolina Department of Corrections moved the state’s death row prisoners to a new location with increased interaction and less restrictive housing, as well as access to job opportunities. In 2019, the Virginia Department of Corrections was found by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to have violated the Eighth Amendment with its use of near-constant solitary confinement and moved death row prisoners to less restrictive housing. Virginia abolished the death penalty in 2021.

The Texas pilot is limited to a select few — the vast majority of the state’s death row prisoners still live under near constant isolation. In 2023, 4 death row prisoners sued the state, challenging their living conditions. They allege that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has violated Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment because of mold and insect infestations, as well as the indefinite use of solitary confinement. The State has argued that the “alleged conditions are not sufficiently extreme” to violate the U.S. Constitution. Catherine Bratic, attorney for the prisoners, told the Chronicle “there’s a reason that even short periods of solitary confinement are considered torture under international human rights conventions.” The case is still pending, despite TDCJ’s independent changes to conditions.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/texas-pilot-program-allows-for-less-restrictive-conditions-for-some-on-death-row-for-first-time-in-decades