Terre Haute U.S. Penitentiary Death Row

Special Confinement Unit

The Special Confinement Unit was designed to house a maximum of 50 men, although the number of inmates with federal death sentences has not reached that level. When the SCU was first activated in July 1999, 20 individuals previously housed at various federal and state prisons were moved to the SCU. As of November 2002, 24 men were serving federal death sentences. Each cell in the SCU has a 13-inch television that provides regular television programming as well as educational and religious programming. Inmates have access to medical and psychological services, indoor and outdoor recreation, an industrial workshop for prison jobs, attorney and family visiting rooms, and library services within the unit. A videoconferencing system is available in the unit to provide face-to-face contact between inmates and the courts if necessary. To the greatest extent possible, residents in the SCU have the same privileges as other prisoners at USP Terre Haute, including access to the prison commissary.

Execution Facility

The execution facility at USP Terre Haute is a separate building (2,135 square feet) with witness rooms, the execution room, and various utility rooms. Construction of the execution facility started in 1994 and was completed in 1995. It includes four separate witness rooms, one each for community witnesses, government witnesses, media witnesses, and inmate witnesses. Each federal execution is [Page 954]conducted, on a date and time determined by the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, by a U.S. marshal chosen by the director of the U.S. Marshals Service. The designated marshal and the warden of USP Terre Haute select any additional personnel needed to conduct the execution, not necessarily personnel from USP Terre Haute. All Department of Justice employees have the right to decline to participate in an execution if they have moral or religious objections. Lethal injection, the method of execution most commonly employed by U.S. states, is the method used at USP Terre Haute.

History of Federal Executions

Prior to 2001, the U.S. government had not executed an inmate in 38 years, since Victor Feguer was hanged in 1963 at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. Feguer had been convicted of a federal kidnapping charge. With the establishment of the SCU and the execution facility at USP Terre Haute, the U.S. Department of Justice brought the enactment of death sentences under direct federal supervision. The 34 federal executions of civilians prior to 2001 had occurred at various federal, state, and county facilities, and a variety of execution methods had been employed, including hanging, electrocution, and gassing. The executions that probably received the most media and other attention prior to 2001 were the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 for conspiracy to commit espionage. The husband and wife were electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison in New York. Ethel Rosenberg is one of only two women who have been executed by the U.S. government. The other federal execution of a woman also occurred in 1953, when Bonnie Brown Heady was gassed to death at the Missouri State Penitentiary for kidnapping and murder.

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