Federal appeals court rules Florida death row not too hot

[Freddie Stubbs]

By RON WORD, Associated Press
August 10, 2004

JACKSONVILLE — It may be very hot on Florida's death row, but it's not hot enough to be unconstitutional, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

The ruling apparently puts an end to a class-action lawsuit filed four years ago which claimed temperatures on death row routinely top 100 degrees, forcing inmates to stand in toilets, drape themselves in wet towels and sleep naked on concrete floors to bear or beat the heat.

But the Atlanta-based appeals court in a ruling Friday said, "The Constitution does not mandate comfortable prisons ... Generally speaking, prison conditions rise to the level of an Eighth Amendment violation only when they 'involve the wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain.'"

Peter Siegel, an attorney with the Florida Justice Institute in Miami, which filed the suit on behalf of Florida's 365 male inmates at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, said the organization has not decided whether to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

more: http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/florida/article/0,2071,NPDN_14910_3098965,00.html