Hudson points out that there is no single definition of the death row phenomenon.2 But it is generally known due to two main features: The long period spent in awaiting death; the second component involves harsh physical conditions. The third element is psychological. Some authors have used term ‘death row syndrome’ to describe the consequential psychological illness that can occur as a result of death row phenomenon. Smith identifies the cause of psychological harms due to ‘extended
1Amnesty International, Death Sentences and Executions 2015 (London: Amnesty International, 2016),
p.7. During the year 2015, total number of the death row prisoners confined in different countries of the world, 20292, excluding China.
2 Patrick Hudson, ‘Does the Death Row Phenomenon Violate a Prisoner's Human Rights under
periods of time spent on death row, in harsh conditions coupled with the unique stress of living under the sentence of death’.3
7.1.1. Death Row Phenomenon Portrayed by Different Authors in the World
The classical writers namely Camus, Foucault and Jeremy Bentham demonstrate in their works the experience of being on death row.4 They documented the nature and problems of being on death row; each of these classical works offers a glimpse of the wider social structures within which death row prisoners were positioned. Apart from these classical studies, there are numerous scholars who have documented this severe mental trauma, a result of the severe stress associated with death sentences.5 All these works show that all condemned prisoners suffer from an overwhelming sense of fear and helplessness, mental incompetence, fluctuating moods, recurrent depression, mental slowness, confession, forgetfulness, lethargy, listlessness, drowsiness, symptom of senility, self-mutilation and insanity confined elsewhere in the prison.6 Some condemned prisoners grow old prematurely and describe themselves as ‘the living dead’ an image that conveys the extremity of their confinement’.7
It is a fact that waiting for death is more horrible than the death itself. George Scott has rightly said that ‘the fear of death, during those tragic days, is productive of much greater suffering than the actual experience of death’.8
Albert Camus has portrayed the agony and suffering of death row prisoners in these words: ‘Man is undone by waiting for capital punishment well before he dies. Two deaths are inflicted on him, the first being worse than the second’. 9
Robert Jonson depicted: ‘Defeated by the
3
Amy Smith, ‘Not Waiving but Drowning: The Anatomy of Death Row Syndrom and Volunteering for Execution’ (2008) 17 The Boston University Public Interest Law Journal 237, p.242.
4 Albert Camus, Reflections on the Guillotine (Indiana: Fridtjof-Karla Publications, 1960); Michel
Foucault, Discipline and Punish; Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
legislation (Collected works of Jeremy Bentham) (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1996).
5 William Schabas, Development in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice: Execution Delayed Execution
denied’ (1994) 5 Criminal Law Forum180.; Michael Radelet, Facing the Death Penalty: Essays on a
Cruel and unusual Punishment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).
6
Robert Johnson, Death Work: A Study of the Modern Execution Process (Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 1998), pp-96-103; Michael Ross Death Penalty Cases’ (2006) 14(2) Journal of Law and Policy735.
7 Robert Johnson, Life Under Sentence of Death in Robert Johnson & Hans Toch (eds.), The Pains of
Imprisonment (London: Sage, 1982), p. 129.
8
George Ryley Scott, The History of Capital Punishment: Including an Examination of the Case for
and against the Death Penalty (London: Torchstream Books, 1950), p.124.
awesome prospect of death by execution. Worn down in small and almost imperceptible ways, the gradually but inexorably become less than fully human’.10
It does not only involve the delay but also often appalling conditions of detention imposed upon the inmates. William Schabas described harsh prison conditions: ‘Cells without amenities, little or no time outdoors for recreation, and absence of activities related to work or education, contemptuous prison personnel, restricted opportunities for family visits’.11
His life is lived twenty-three out of twenty-four hours a day in a space six feet wide and eight feet long.12The conditions of confinement also appear to aggravate existing mental disorder.13 It is the place where humanity is constantly denied. ‘Here life and death are one. Both are ever present; while there are times when death seems distant, it is only an illusion’.14
Another bleak aspect of death row is segregation of condemned prisoners from the general population that makes prisoners feel degraded. In this context , C. Michael Lambrix( death row prisoner) explains: ‘Part of this stems from physical constraints, while part stems from symbolic isolation that comes from living with the fact that 12 members of your community have determined that you are a worthless person who should no longer be permitted to exist’.15
‘Life on death row is a blending of the real and the unreal; it is a clash of internal and external tension, the tension of everyday living magnified a hundred times’.16
Robert Johnson says: ‘the stress of life under sentence of death reaches its zenith during the deathwatch’.17
The reality of this waiting place for death is difficult to grasp. ‘Death row is indeed, the stuff of poets, because so much of the suffering that is involved belongs to the
10 Robert Johnson, Death Work: A Study of the Modern Execution Process (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth,
1998), p.93.
11
William A. Schabas, Death Penalty as Cruel Treatment and Torture: Capital Punishment
Challenged in The World’s Courts (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996), p.96
12 Helen Prejean, Dead Man Walking (London: Fount Paperbacks,1993), p 16. 13
Cunningham, Mark D., and Mark P. Vigen, ‘Death row inmate characteristics, Adjustment, and confinement: A critical review of the literature’ (2002) (20) Behavioral Sciences & the Law191.
14 Joseph M. Giarratano, ‘The Pains of Life’ in Michael L. Radelet(eds.), Facing the Death Penalty:
Essay on a Cruel and Unusual Punishment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), pp-193-197,
p. 196.
15
C. Michael Lambrix, Isolation of Death Row in Michael L. Radelet(eds.), Facing the Death Penalty:
Essay on a Cruel and Unusual Punishment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), pp-198-202,
p. 198.
16 Robert Johnson, Condemned to Die: Life Under Sentence of Death (New York: Elsevier North
Holland,1981), p. 40
17 Robert Johnson, Death Work: A Study of the Modern Execution Process (Belmont CA: Wadsworth,
spirit rather than the body. This is not a kind of torture that can be easily proven with photographs, X-rays, and medical reports, although psychiatrists and psychologists have attempted to study the matter. While serving a term in an English jail, Oscar Wilde in his poem ‘The Balled of Reading Gaol’ attempts to convey the mental suffering of the condemned man, forced to brood upon ‘[his]is anguish night and day’.18
In 2010, the feelings of Texas death row prisoners expressed by paintings, cartoons, poetry and prose published into a book.19 The feeling of a death row prisoner has been portrayed in these lines: ‘I like a hungry tiger, focused and driven, I have no time to deviate from the path, cuz with each breath I take, it could be my last’.20
The soul of another death row prisoners has been dissected in these words: ‘Being on death row means dealing with pain, hurt, madness, suffering, sadness, hopelessness and depression, and believe it or not, happiness’.21