Multiple national civil rights organizations put together a letter to Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and the Louisiana Pardon Board about hearings for death row inmates.
A federal judge Friday ordered Louisiana prison officials to stop housing youth offenders in the former death row of Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and to relocate them within one week.
U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick of the Middle District of Louisiana found that conditions at Angola constitute cruel and unusual punishment and violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The ruling was the culmination of a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana filed last year after Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the state would start sending children to Angola because six juveniles had escaped from the Bridge City Center for Youth.
At the time, Edwards said the transfers to Angola were temporary while officials worked on renovations and improvements at another juvenile correctional facility.