The state's "arbitrary requirement to house all male death row prisoners in permanent solitary confinement does not promote safety and security, is inconsistent with correctional best practices, and serves no penological purpose," the lawsuit claims.
Justice Richard Bernstein said Pete Martel's hiring as clerk was unacceptable because "I'm intensely pro-law enforcement."
More than 900 had been held in isolation for more than a decade.
Arthur Johnson spent his entire adult life in jail for a murder he says he was coerced to confess to by police.
Defense lawyers say they were accused of smuggling drugs to clients based on tests so unreliable they're akin to "witchcraft, phrenology or simply picking a number out of a hat."
The HALT Act would allow incarcerated people to be held in solitary confinement for no more than 15 days.
In a matter of weeks, the number of inmates in solitary jumped from 60,000 to nearly 300,000.
A previously confidential DHS report found "inhumane" use of solitary confinement against mentally ill detainees at an ICE detention center.
Dean Higgins claims he was put in a cell that regularly flooded with raw sewage for seven months after he bit a guard while having an involuntary seizure.
Paul Manafort isn’t deserving of torture. Neither was Kalief Browder.