Rogelio V. Solis/AP
Lisa Jo Chamberlin, who spoke to a Mississippi reporter in January about her experiences as the only woman on the state’s death row and her allegations of cruel and unusual punishment behind bars, now says that after speaking to the press, she faced targeted retaliation by prison officers for having gone public about her concerns, prompting new calls by civil rights advocates for investigations into her conditions.
In an interview last week from the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility after her phone access was restored, Chamberlin told me she had endured what she characterized as punitive restrictions for speaking to Mississippi Today, from prolonged cell confinement to blocks on her contacts, interaction, shower access, and some medication and mail, treatment that men on death row of comparable records are not equally subjected to. After the article appeared, Chamberlin went silent, unreachable for months by friends and family who later learned she had been stripped of the rights and privileges that death-row men continued to receive.
“I was blocked the whole month of February and the whole month of March,” Chamberlin said.
“She lost phone access” after the Mississippi Today article, said her goddaughter, Laykin Bordelon. The prison “blocked her pin number and she couldn’t make outgoing calls. I definitely think” the block and the broader alleged restrictions were “retaliation for speaking out” about the constitutionality of conditions.
Men on death row “walk in and out their front door,” Chamberlin said. “They have a garden. They have a pool table. They have a couch. They have their own kitchen in their building. Whereas me, I’m housed in long-term closed custody” without equal access, and the impact on her mental health is unbearable, she said.
“This is the worst treatment I have seen by far” of anyone on death row, said the Rev. Jeff Hood in January, before learning of Chamberlin’s new restrictions. Her treatment “is by far, by far, the worst. Not just in Mississippi” but throughout the United States. Hood, who has advised hundreds of incarcerated people, said this weekend that “Mississippi’s death row for men is one of the least restrictive in the country, so here you have the men getting a lot more freedom and space, and then you have Lisa and she’s completely locked down. The men have gardens, video calls, phone calls pretty consistently, day-room privileges, playing sports together.”
Men on death row “walk in and out their front door. They have a garden, a pool table, a couch, their own kitchen in their building, whereas I’m housed in long-term closed custody” without equal rights or access.
“The men are allowed out of their cells from 7 in the morning to 7 at night,” said Mitzi Magleby, an advocate in Mississippi. “They have their own kitchen, their own basketball court, their own yard. They’re allowed to play games, watch television, talk on tablets, video with their families, and associate with each other—glaringly different from what Lisa Jo gets. Lisa Jo gets to sit in a cell. She gets no access to video calls. Rarely gets to go outside. She doesn’t get to use the microwave. She gets literally no interaction. She is basically punished for being the only woman.”
“It’s not just a little gap,” Hood added. “It’s not just one gender has video calls and another doesn’t. It’s this whole other world of privileges,” a “stark difference” contributing to the “moral injury” of death sentences he described to my colleague Al Letson, host of More To The Story.
Chamberlin “does take responsibility for the part she played in the crimes” she was convicted of, Bordelon says: the murder 22 years ago of two people in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, committed with her then-boyfriend, who, unlike Chamberlin, had his death sentence vacated; he was resentenced to life without parole.
“I have to do everything by myself because I’m the only woman on death row,” Chamberlin told Mississippi Today reporter Mina Corpuz before going unresponsive to contacts who had typically heard from Chamberlin frequently.
“I believe it was” retaliation for speaking publicly about gender inequality, Chamberlin said. “The superintendent and a lot of the guards did” make comments about the January article. “I should have known to be careful” about going public, but “I’m completely aware of the repercussions” and risks of speaking again, and “it’s definitely worth it to me” to draw public attention to death-row disparities “because it’s not for me, in the long run.”
Asked if she is comfortable with more articles appearing, Chamberlin emphatically said yes: “My [advisers] for the longest time told me to be quiet. Sit down, be quiet, don’t raise a fuss. But I did that for so many years, and it didn’t change anything…And that was enough. I said I’m not gonna do this no more. I’m gonna start fighting for myself” by speaking to the press.
Now, a letter seeking investigations into whether Chamberlin’s treatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment, and gender discrimination, in violation of the 14th Amendment, has been submitted by her goddaughter to the state’s Department of Corrections and other agencies.
The letter—and audio of Chamberlin’s first public comments since January—was shared with me by J.R. Rainbolt, host of Criminology Chats, a powerful podcast, produced by A.M. Peters, that delves into the criminal justice system. Rainbolt had exclusively interviewed Chamberlin as part of his educational and investigative work to shine a light on prisons, the courts, forensic psychology, and survivors of violence.
“This is the worst treatment I have seen by far” of anyone on death row. “Not just in Mississippi” but throughout the United States.
About 2,100 people are on death row in America. Fewer than 50 are women. Prisons tend to have latitude in how disparately they can treat individuals, but Chamberlin’s conditions are “very, very prejudicial,” said Magleby.
In the letter seeking an investigation, Chamberlin’s goddaughter alleges six forms of violations: extreme isolation and 48‑hour lockdowns that confined Chamberlin without being allowed out for movement, exceeding what men on death‑row experience; denied access to showers during extended lockdown; less outdoor access and social interaction than men; punitive restrictions not applied equally to men, including lost access to items she previously could purchase such as tobacco products; degrading staff conduct and comments aimed at Chamberlin on the basis of gender; and severe mental health decline from prolonged isolation and lack of contact.
Katrina Reid, the prison’s superintendent, did not respond to a request for comment about Chamberlin’s conditions. Neither did Kate Head, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
“I don’t mind” journalists seeking comment from officials about conditions, Chamberlin told me. “I get along with [Superintendent Reid] real good. It’s just that she needs to address the issues when I bring them to her. I’m locked behind a door. I can’t” communicate with Reid easily, and “every time I address the issue with the superintendent,” conditions do not materially improve. “That’s part of the problem because what the superintendent says about me is what everyone has to do.”
“I care about Lisa Jo very, very deeply,” said Magelby, the Mississippi advocate. “I speak with a lot of inmates on a daily basis and the way they’re treating Lisa Jo” is unequal, “like a ‘lesser’ person because she’s the only woman.”
More than 95 percent of women on death row experienced gender-based violence before incarceration, “yet this information is often not considered at trial,” according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of Mississippi filed by the MacArthur Justice Center on behalf of the Battered Women’s Justice Project, attorneys Jim Craig and Andrea Lewis Hartung raised that argument: “A full picture of the defendant’s history is critical in the case of a [gender-based violence] survivor like Ms. Chamberlin,” whose “death sentence provides a textbook illustration of the consequences of failing to educate the factfinder in a capital case on the mitigating nature of a [gender-based violence] survivor’s background.”
Attorneys petitioned the court to grant postconviction relief, vacate her death sentence, and sentence her to life imprisonment. But she still sits on death row.
The implications of inequality in sentencing and confinement are far-reaching, from failure-to-protect laws that incarcerate women all over the country—for other people’s violence—as my colleague Samantha Michaels has reported, to conditions behind bars.
While Chamberlin waits for intervention, she is determined to self-advocate for treatment that is more humane.
“Lisa Jo needs to be afforded the right to associate with other people,” said Magleby. “As long as her behavior is on par with other inmates, there is no reason she should be locked away and isolated.” The prison could “create a designated plot for her to walk in and out of her room like the men on death row. Even if they have to house her with other closed-custody offenders, they can still give her the type of treatment the men on death row have.”
