By Sue Lindsay
The Rocky Mountain News
DENVER, Colo. — Law students at the University of Denver sued the federal Bureau of Prisons on Wednesday on behalf of a man kept in solitary confinement for 24 years.
The suit, filed in Denver federal court, said the incarceration of Thomas Silverstein amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
Silverstein, 55, is being held in total isolation at the Supermax prison in Florence.
He has been in prison since 1975 and in solitary confinement since the 1983 murder of a prison guard at the federal prison in Marion, Ill. He previously was convicted of killing two inmates at prisons in Marion and Leavenworth, Kan., in 1981 and 1982. His conviction for killing a third inmate was overturned.
Silverstein was put on permanent “no human contact” status after the guard’s murder. His isolation for 24 years has led to deterioration of his mental health, the lawsuit said.
The conditions of his confinement caused him to “suffer deprivations that cause mental harm that goes beyond the boundaries of what most human beings can psychologically tolerate,” the lawsuit charged.
Kept in soundproof cells, he has been subjected to extreme heat and constant bright lights, the lawsuit said. His only visitors were strangers who volunteer to visit prisoners or persons he knew before he was incarcerated.
Silverstein has demonstrated for 15 years that he no longer poses a threat to staff or inmates, the suit said. He has not violated a prison policy or gotten a misconduct citation for more than 20 years, it said.
He exhibited nonviolent behavior even when inmates released him during a prison riot in Atlanta in 1987, the lawsuit said.
He was moved to Supermax in 2005 believing he would be able to demonstrate his ability to function in the general population. At Supermax, he is confined in a room with 24- hour camera surveillance.
He is being held in total isolation while other inmates who have murdered guards or inmates while in prison are not, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit seeks a court order to remove him from solitary confinement and place him into the general population, to give him access to religious materials and to relax restrictions on his communication with visitors and attorneys.
DU law students Steven Baum and Amber Trzinski filed the case under the supervision of visiting professor Dan Manville, a prisoners’ rights expert, and associate professor Laura Rovner, as part of the school’s Civil Rights Clinic class.
Copyright 2007 Rocky Mountain News