Tsarnaev to get death or spend his life in 'supermax' prison likened to 'hell'
If a federal jury decides to spare convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from execution, he'll get the next worst thing: Spend the rest of his life in 'hell.'
The United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility - also known as ADX or "Supermax" - in Florence, Colorado, is where America sends its worst criminals. The former warden even described it as "a clean version of hell."
The federal prison houses fewer than 500 inmates with serious rap sheets, including Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph and Terry Nichols -- who is serving 161 consecutive life sentences for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 . If the company sounds bad enough, what might be worse is that there is no company.
Inmates at the ADX spend approximately 23 hours of every day in solitary confinement with a 4-inch wide window that's blocked so they don't have any chance of a view. And if they're good, they may get the chance to exercise in a small outdoor cage. Alone.
A class-action lawsuit filed in 2012 claimed that the degree of solitary confinement at ADX was cruel and unusual punishment after numerous inmates committed suicide there.
An associate law professor in Denver told The Boston Globe, "There have been some reports that the conditions at Guantanamo are better than that the ADX."
Even a former inmate explained the experience is horrific. Garrett Linderman told CBS 60 Minutes, "It breaks down the human spirit, it breaks down the human psyche. It breaks your mind."
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