Rutherford Institute Challenges Death Sentence - Solitary Confinement of Inmate Based on Racial Bias, Mental Incompetence & Systemic Injustice!
(2019-08-24 at 14:01:36 )

Rutherford Institute Challenges Death Sentence - Solitary Confinement of Inmate Based on Racial Bias, Mental Incompetence & Systemic Injustice

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Denouncing the many failings of the United States of Americas capital punishment system, a consistently unjust, error-bound system plagued by racial prejudice, economic inequality and prosecutorial misconduct, The Rutherford Institute is challenging the death sentence and lengthy solitary confinement of a Texas inmate whose sentence was impacted by racial bias, mental incompetence and systemic injustice.

In filing an amicus curiae brief in Saldaño v. Davis, Rutherford Institute attorneys have asked the United States Supreme Court to vacate the sentence of Texas death row inmate Victor Hugo Saldaño.

Mr. Saldaño, sentenced to death based on an expert witness racist testimony suggesting that Hispanics pose a greater danger to society than other individuals, was subsequently subjected to eights years of solitary confinement for up to 22 hours a day, which attorneys argue is psychologically stressful treatment tantamount to physical torture.

Affiliate attorney Christopher Moriarty assisted in advancing the arguments in The Rutherford Institutes amicus brief in Saldaño v. Davis.

"There is nothing moral or just about the death penalty, certainly not the way it is implemented in the United States of America," said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of "Battlefield America: The War on the American People".

"As capital punishment studies have shown, whether or not you are sentenced to death often has little to do with the crime and everything to do with your race, where you live, and who prosecutes your case."

Victor Saldaño, a citizen of Argentina, was charged in Texas with shooting a man in the course of a robbery.

After Mr. Saldaño was convicted of murder, a separate court proceeding was held to determine whether the death penalty should be imposed.

During the penalty phase of the trial, the state presented the testimony of a psychologist who told the jury that Hispanics and blacks pose a greater danger to the public and so posed the kind of future danger that justified imposing the death penalty.

On the basis of that racist testimony, the jury sentenced Mr. Saldaño to death.

He subsequently appealed, asserting that the psychologists testimony violated his constitutional right not to be sentenced on the basis of his race.

Although the state defended the sentence for four years on appeal, it eventually admitted to the United States Supreme Court that the psychologists testimony was improper, and the case was remanded for a new sentencing hearing.

However, the Texas courts were unwilling to accept the states admission of error, leaving the case to drag on.

In the meantime, Mr. Saldaño was placed in solitary confinement in Texas notoriously severe death-row prison and remained there for nearly eight years until a federal court ordered that he be granted a resentencing hearing.

By that time, Mr. Saldaños mental health had deteriorated so severely due to the conditions of his confinement that he had become mentally incapacitated and was incapable of defending himself.

Despite his familys request that he be moved into a federal psychiatric institution, Mr. Saldaño was again sentenced to death, largely due to his erratic behavior in the courtroom.

On appeal, Mr. Saldaños attorneys argued that his extended stay in solitary confinement contributed to the mental deterioration that was the basis for his death sentence, thereby violating the Eighth Amendments prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

In its amicus brief asking the United States Supreme Court to vacate Mr. Saldaños death sentence, The Rutherford Institute expanded on the Eighth Amendment argument, detailing the dehumanizing effects of and psychological harm caused by solitary confinement and arguing that Mr. Saldaño should not be put to death because of a condition the state itself caused.

This press release is also available at "The Rutherford Institute" .

The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated.

Reprinted here with the gracious permission of "The Rutherford Institute" - Dedicated To The Defense Of Civil Liberties And Human Rights!!