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Florida's Prisons: A Summer of Discontent
By Larry Helm Spalding
Legislative Staff Counsel, September 1999
Two issues have taken center stage in the criminal justice arena over the summer: the apparent murder of a death row inmate by guards at Florida State Prison and whether use of the electric chair is constitutional.
When I served as Capital Collateral Representative, our lawyers and investigators were often told of abuse of prisoners at the hands of their guards. Too often we were skeptical of the allegations. The inmate said it happened, but there was never any proof other than perhaps the word of another inmate who, like your client, was sitting on Death Row convicted of committing terrible crimes. No guard would ever confirm an inmate's story. No prison administrator gave any weight to your client's allegations. Yet time and time again those stories resurfaced. The response of the Florida Legislature was to pass legislation, at the behest of the Attorney General, to penalize inmates who filed unsubstantiated or frivolous grievances.
How do you get at the truth in the prison system? That's the question now being directed at corrections officials following the death of Frank Valdes, apparently at the hands of guards. Is this an isolated incident, as the Secretary of the Dept. of Corrections maintains, or is there a culture of abuse and institutional silence permeating the prison system?
There have been allegations of frequent beatings of prisoners by guards at Florida State Prison, especially at the X Wing and B Wing units where inmates with disciplinary problems are housed. Moreover, there is little doubt that dozens of past complaints by inmates that they were assaulted by guards received little or no follow up. Some inmates claim they were beaten after being handcuffed. Others claim they were attacked as an initiation rite after transfer from another prison. Even when inmates sustained injuries inconsistent with accounts given by guards, their complaints were dismissed as unsubstantiated. Those who work in the Dept. of Corrections have little incentive to give inmate complaints much credence.
Weeding out abusive and sadistic guards is an arduous process that can lead to dissension in the ranks. It often means taking the word of a prisoner over corrections employees. Seldom, if ever, does that happen. Yet it is a fundamental responsibility of the prison system to ensure humane conditions of those in state confinement.
Frank Valdes' violent death brought needed attention to problems at Florida State Prison. Although both the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI are now involved in the investigation of the death of Valdes, the verdict is still out on whether there will be any meaningful change in Florida's corrections system.
The New "Old Sparky"
Less than two years after narrowly upholding the use of the electric chair, the Florida Supreme Court is again forced to deal with the issue of whether electrocution is a constitutionally permissible tool to execute condemned prisoners or a brutal spectacle that causes unnecessary suffering.
The battle over "Old Sparky" was renewed in July when the execution of Allen Lee Davis appears to have been botched. The bloody event horrified some witnesses and is the focal point of a legal challenge to be resolved by the Florida Supreme Court by Sept. 14, the date the next inmate, Thomas Provenzano, is scheduled to die.
Having personally witnessed 18 executions while at CCR, I was called upon to testify at the court hearing in Orlando in July. In none of those executions did I observe anything that would have caused the quantity of blood that was present on the body and clothes of Allen Lee Davis. This was anything but a typical execution.
Florida's use of the electric chair became a major issue in 1997 when flames shot from the head of Pedro Medina during his execution. The state Supreme Court later voted 4-3 to permit use of electrocution, though Justice Leander Shaw said in dissent that the chair is a "dinosaur more befitting the laboratory of Baron Frankenstein than the death chamber of Florida State Prison.''
Though the Court permitted continued use of the electric chair, it suggested that lawmakers switch the state's method of execution to lethal injection. But lawmakers insisted on the use of electrocution.
However, lawmakers passed a measure in 1998 that would switch the method of execution to lethal injection if the chair is declared unconstitutional by the courts. The Dept. of Corrections has stated that it is prepared to carry out executions by lethal injection should the Florida Supreme Court prohibit further use of the electric chair.
