ABSTRACT
In two recent cases, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals – the federal intermediary court for the western United States – raised a question about whether the conditions of confinement in Arizona’s supermaximum security housing unit for those awaiting death in Arizona may be so oppressive that they were in essence compelling some inmates to ‘volunteer’ to die in order to escape death row (Comer v. Stewart, 2000; Miller v. Stewart, 2000). The written decisions, which sent the cases back to the lower court for evidentiary hearings on the issues, open an interesting line of inquiry into the contemporary state of penality in the US. In this chapter, I examine these two cases and the subsequent proceedings in order to explore the contemporary meaning of punishment and penal subjectivity, as it is reflected in the practice of putting the condemned on ‘cold storage’ ( Human Rights Watch, 1997) in Supermax units and the judicial interpretation of its potential penal harm. 2 This intersection of harsh penal practices, and its ultimate acceptance by the courts, represents a vivid example of the new punitiveness at work in the US where disturbing consequences of penal extremism are normalized and ratified.
