Philly man held in solitary confinement 33 years must be let off death row, court rules
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/30/20: “Ernest Porter spent 33 years in a 7-by-12-foot cell with a roughly 6-inch-wide window. He was allowed out for 10 hours a week — but leaving the cell meant being strip searched and then shackled. Exercise meant time spent in a cage, alone or with one other prisoner.
That was life on death row in Pennsylvania state prison. And Porter’s was among the longest solitary-confinement stints on record, though his death sentence was vacated in 2003.
But now, Porter, 59, and six other prisoners have been moved out of death-row solitary into general population, following a precedent-setting 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in September that found the conditions violated the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.”