federal death row

According to prisoners serving death sentences, temperatures have been uncomfortably high at the United States Penitentiary-Terre Haute. Outside temperatures have reached into the 90s since the outage began.

In a letter sent to two Connecticut lawmakers last month and later obtained by WFIU/WTIU News, chemical supplier Absolute Standards, Inc. says it's done making pentobarbital for the U.S. government.

Indiana hasn’t carried out an execution in more than a decade. But the state is home to federal death row, inside a special facility in Terre Haute where the U.S. carries out all federal executions.

Just a few months after he took office, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a moratorium to halt federal executions. Now federal prosecutors say they will seek capital punishment for a white supremacist.

Friends of Nasih Khalil Ra’id say he was struggling to cope with conditions at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. The facility houses the U.S. prison bureau’s “Special Confinement Unit,” or federal death row.

The U.S. prison bureau reported the only Indiana resident on federal death row became unresponsive and died Friday. A spokesperson for the bureau declined to explain what caused Nasih Ra'id to become unresponsive.

Bureau policy allows staff to inspect all mail entering the facility. But so-called “special mail” — letters and packages clearly identified as attorney-client communication — can only be inspected while the recipient is present.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Terre Haute, asks a federal judge to allow clergy to have physical contact with the men for whom they serve as spiritual advisors.

The U.S. Department of Justice disclosed the decision not to pursue capital punishment against Patrick Crusius in a one-sentence notice filed Tuesday with the federal court in El Paso.

A lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court accuses the bureau of holding 38 men in isolated conditions that constitute cruel and unusual punishment.