The Texas Penitentiary in Huntsville or Huntsville Unit ( HV ), dubbed " Walls Unit ", is the state of Texas a prison located in Huntsville, Texas, United States. The facility covers approximately 54.36 acres (22.00 ha), near Downtown Huntsville, operated by the Texas Penitentiary Division of the Criminal Justice Department, which is managed as in Region I. The facility, the oldest state prison of Texas, was opened in 1849.
This unit has a Texas State execution room. This is the most active execution space in the United States, with 551 (on 16 May 2018) executions since 1982, when the death penalty was restored in Texas (see List of individuals executed in Texas).
Video Huntsville Unit
Histori
The first prison inmates arrived on October 1, 1849. This unit was named after Huntsville City. Robert Perkinson, author of Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire , writes that the unit, in Texas, "the first important public work".
Originally Huntsville Unit was only for white Texas people; the only punishment available to black Texans is whipping and hanging. During the American Civil War, detainees in Huntsville produced tents and uniforms for Confederate troops at the prison textile factory. After the Civil War ended, the Huntsville Unit was the only jail in the former Confederate State of America remaining. Perkinson stated that prisons became, within the state, "the first racially integrated public institution".
Initially women in the Texas Prison System were stationed in the Huntsville Unit. Beginning in 1883 women were placed at Johnson Farm, a privately owned cotton plantation near Huntsville.
Historically the prison serves as the administrative headquarters of the Texas Prison System and the Texas Correction Department; inspectors and other executive officers work in prison, and all department headquarters systems and all permanent records are in jail.
In 1974, the prison was the eleven-day siege, one of the longest siege-siege in US history. Three armed prisoners (Fred Carrasco, Ignacio Cuevas, and Rudy Dominquez) arrested several hostages in the education department. The ring leader, Carrasco, has become a porter in the chapel. Cuevas usually works in the inmate's dining room. Ten hostages are employees of the prison system: two educators, and one guard. Then, the prison chaplain will also be a hostage. Four prisoners were also detained as hostages. On the last day, the prisoners tried to escape using the blackboard and the hostage as a shield. Dominquez was killed in his efforts. Carrasco killed Elizabeth Beseda, then shot herself. Julia Standley was also killed that day. Ignacio Cuevas was executed on May 23, 1991, for his murder.
Maps Huntsville Unit
Facilities
While the prison is officially the Huntsville Unit, the red brick wall of the prison leads to the nickname "Wall Units." The prison is 160 miles (260 km) southeast of Dallas and 70 miles (110 km) north of Houston. The original Selblock has been closed for several years before 2011. The previous electric chair was in a building adjacent to the agency's eastern wall. When the death penalty in Huntsville, it's in the East Building.
Operation
Warden Huntsville Unit is responsible for the maintenance of Captain Joe Byrd's Cemetery, the funeral of TDCJ prisoners. Prisoners of this unit are assigned to guard the cemetery.
Release center
The Huntsville Unit serves as one of TDCJ's regional release centers for male detainees. Most male prisoners are released to be closer to their belief areas, approved release countries, and/or residence. Male detainees who have detainees, are classified as sex offenders, have electronic monitoring imposed by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, and/or have certain special conditions of the Super Intensive Supervision Program (SISP) issued from the Huntsville Unit, regardless of country they are from a belief, residence, and/or an approved discharge area. Rick Thaler, director of the Prison Correction Division, estimates in 2010 that the Huntsville Unit, which serves as the regional release center for Greater Houston, will remain the center of TDCJ's biggest release. Throughout the history of the Texas Prison System 90% of male prisoners were sent to the unit for the final part of their sentence before being released. Beginning in September 2010, TDCJ started to use regional release centers for male detainees.
Death penalty
The Huntsville Unit is the location of the Texas State execution room. The TDCJ houses male prisoners in Polunsky Unit and female death row inmates at Mountain View Unit.
Between 1819 and 1923 the method of execution depended until Texas allowed the use of an electric chair; the use of electric chairs ended the execution of death penalty by the district in Texas. The often-soft chair called "Old Sparky" was built by inmates. Between 1924 and 1964, 362 inmates were executed with electricity. This chair is now in the Texas Prison Museum, located on Interstate 45 on the north side of Huntsville featuring historical items from the prison system, including calves and other items seized from inmates.
On one occasion the prison uses the facility under the current warden's office as a death sentence for women. Emma "Eight Straight" Oliver, the first female prisoner convicted under the jurisdiction of the state of Texas, was sentenced to death in 1949. In 1951, his sentence was changed to life imprisonment. Furthermore the Goree Unit and then the Mountain View Unit are used as the line of female deaths.
Execution procedure
Prisoners scheduled for execution were brought from the death penalty to Unit Walls early in the afternoon of the scheduled execution. Unlike other countries, Texas forbids inmates from special food (since 2011), due to abuse of privileges by past prisoners and the reason that they do not offer food for their victims and therefore should not be given special recognition. Prisoners can, but are not required, make a final statement before their execution. With legal executions scheduled to begin after 6:00 am. Huntsville Time (Middle). The inmates were placed until then about 30 feet (9.1 m) from the execution room door; The Texas Death House is located in the northeast corner of the Wall Unit, just under the number 1 picket. There is no law banning multiple executions in a single day, but this has not happened since January 1995.
The execution room is 9-feet (2.7 m) with a 12-foot (3.7 m) room with turquoise walls and gurney. When Jim Willett became a warden in the Huntsville Unit, he added a pillow to the gurney. Two adjacent rooms, overlooking the execution room through the glass window, the two group house. One room is reserved for families or families of crime victims (s). The other is for a cursed family.
For a list of executed people in the Huntsville Unit, see Category: People executed by Texas for all 1923 entries and beyond.
Leading Prisoner
This list does not include prisoners sentenced to death only placed in other units (Ellis, Polunsky, and/or Mountain View) and executed in Huntsville on the days of their execution.
Cultural reference
- "Huntsville", a song on the 1971 Merle Haggard album, Someday We Look Back reference was sent to Huntsville Prison.
- The Getaway , the 1972 Sam Peckinpah movie, starring Steve McQueen, was filmed here.
- Cross Canadian Ragweed has a song about a prison called "Walls of Huntsville" on their self-titled 2002 album.
- Steve Earle recorded "Ellis Unit One" (after Ellis Unit) for the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. The lyrics of the song focus on the effects of capital punishment on guards who carry it out. Earle has been a vocal critic of the death penalty.
- Kevin Costner plays Butch Haynes inmate in the 1993 film A Perfect World, who escaped from Huntsville Prison.
- The Texas Country Cody Johnson artist refers to the prison in his song "Texas Kind of Way", with the lyrics "probably locking me in Huntsville too, if your memory is here to stay."
- In the 2007 film No Country for Old Men , it was mentioned that the Sheriff in Terrell County, Texas has executed a man in the Huntsville Unit for killing a 14-year-old girl.
- Song title by country singer Bobby Bare - Back Home In Huntsville Again
- In Quentin Tarantino "Jackie Brown", the characters played by Samuel L. Jackson and Robert De Niro first met while doing time in Huntsville.
- At the 2003 video game Freelancer, LPIA Huntsville is a prison ship orbiting the planet Houston in the Texas system.
- David Allen Coe refers to "the high walls of Huntsville prison" in his song Houston, Dallas, San Antone.
- The 2003 film, The Life of David Gale , was shot in many places, including Huntsville, Texas. In the film, Kevin Spacey plays an eponymous character, a college professor and an old activist against the death penalty who was sentenced to death for killing opponents of fellow capital punishment.
- Jason Boland and Stragglers released a song from the 2015 Squelch CD titled Christmas in Huntsville .
See also
- Texas state prison list
- Texas Prison Rodeo
- Capital punishment in Texas
Footnote
External links
- Huntsville Unit - Texas Criminal Law Department
- The Texas State Prison in Huntsville from the Texas Online Handbook
- Texas Prison Board: Inventory Records of the Texas Prison System at Texas State Archives 1913-1933, 1943, not dated
- List of detainees in Huntsville Unit - The Texas Tribune
- Texas Prison Museum
- "Inside Death Row." - National Geographic Explorer
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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