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Texas' "Secret Death Penalty": Inadequate prison healthcare

A new report (pdf) from the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) argues that "Texas has created a 'secret death penalty': poor medical care can turn temporary imprisonment for relatively minor offenses into a death sentence." Timothy Cole's family might agree. He died of an asthma attack in TDCJ in 1999, years before DNA would prove another man committed the rape for which he was falsely convicted.The report's title, "A Thin Line," comes from a quote from Dr. Ben Raimer, a UTMB vice president and former head of the Correctional Managed Care Committee, and yes, he who recently received a $125K bonus. I was in the room back in 2006 when he told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, ?Right now the [health care] system is constitutional? but we?re on a thin line...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on February 09, 2011 (boomark / email).