"'Suicide' common on South Dakota's death row," John Hult's report in today's Sioux Falls Argus Leader.
This morning, we learned that death row inmate James McVay was found dead in his cell.
All signs point to suicide, as Mr. McVay was hanging from a bed sheet.
That makes him the second death row inmate to commit suicide in his cell – the first was Robert Leroy Anderson in 2003 - but the reality is that each of the death row inmates who've died in South Dakota during the modern era accepted death before they had to.
About 10 percent of executed inmates in the U.S. fall into the category of a "volunteer," or a person who ends their appeals early.
In South Dakota, the figure is 100 percent.
And:
McVay's death leaves three men on death row: Page's co-defendant Briley Piper, Robert's co-defendant Rodney Berget and Charles Rhines, now the longest-serving death row inmate.
Rhines decried the conditions on South Dakota's death row – which isn't a wing of the penitentiary, but simply a designation for some of the men in administrative segregation - in a series of letters to the Argus Leader in 2013.
Earlier coverage from South Dakota begins at the link. Related posts are in the volunteer category index.
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