Opposing torture on death row

Opposing torture on death row

Last Tuesday, CCR joined the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) and Reprieve U.S. on an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review the death penalty case of Bobby James Moore. Moore has been on death row since 1980, when he was 20 years old, and has spent the last 15 years in solitary confinement (which is standard practice on death row in Texas). The amicus brief argues that prolonged solitary confinement awaiting execution violates Eighth Amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment.
CCR has previously argued that the time awaiting execution and conditions on death row amount to torture, in our report “The United States Tortures Before It Kills: An Examination of the Death Row Experience from a Human Rights Perspective.” We have also collected extensive evidence, in our successful challenge to long-term solitary confinement in California, showing the devastating effects of the practice on both mental and physical health.
CCR is unequivocally opposed to the death penalty, and we support efforts to abolish it entirely. Until then, people on death row must be protected from abuses like prolonged solitary confinement. We hope the Supreme Court will take this case and make the right decision.