Death-Row Cells Are Unlocked by Accident
For the second time since December, cell doors at the Arkansas prison housing the state’s death row inmates were accidentally unlocked, prison officials said.
No one left their cells when a guard unlocked 26 doors on death row at Varner prison, about 70 miles southeast of Little Rock, for three minutes Wednesday.
“They [the prisoners] sat there. They didn’t move. But the death row inmates are the best behaved inmates in prison,” said Dina Tyler, spokeswoman for the Arkansas prison system.
In December, an electrical fault opened all doors in a cellblock housing violent prisoners such as murderers and rapists. Dozens of inmates ventured into a corridor and one was killed.
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