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Henderson maintains a personal column which is posted on the Internet. In this column, Henderson has described the treatment she as a mentally ill woman has received while on Death Row. She argues that women inmates are stripped of clothing, dignity, and self-respect and provided with inadequate at best psychiatric health services (Welcome to Adobe GoLive 4, 2000). Henderson paints a portrait of an abusive correctional environment which dehumanizes and demeans women inmates, especially those that are convicted of capital and other heinous crimes. The portrait she paints is one in which inmates awaiting the execution of a death sentence are not permitted to work, given an hour of recreation and social contact per day, and subjected to frequent total body strip searches. With only seven women currently on Death Row in Texas, Henderson argues that the constant verification of inmates identity is further dehumanizing (Cruel and Unusual Part 2, 2000).
Henderson also describes the Texas Death Row Activity Plan which is based on a Ruiz Court Order. In her view, the restrictions that are placed on Death Row women are designed not to ensure their safety or to prevent them from behaving violently or self-destructively, but rather to inconvenience them and remind them continuously of their situation (Cruel and Unusual Part 2, 2000).
The process of appeals made available under American law and articulated in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) have been characterized by some jurists as excessive and extreme (Hall, 1992). In 1990, the Supreme Court promulgated the ruling in Butler v. McKellar that defendants cannot appeal reasonable good-faith interpretations of existing precedents made by state courts even though they are shown to be contrary to later decisions. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist took a lead role in attempting to streamline the appeals process and remove obstacles to implementing the death sentence (Hall, 1992). Thes...