♪ KEYRIS MANZANARES: Coming up, we'll hear from a man who was wrongfully imprisoned for 30 years, from those working to end solitary confinement in Virginia, and we'll meet families whose loved ones died while serving time.

You're watching VPM News Focal Point.

Production funding for VPM News Focal Point is provided by ♪ ♪ KEYRIS MANZANARES: Welcome to a special edition of VPM News Focal Point, examining Virginia's prison system.

I'm Keyris Manzanares.

It's estimated that out of over two million incarcerated Americans, about 100,000 are innocent.

Wrongful convictions not only expose deep flaws in our prison system, but strip people of their human rights.

VPM News Anchor Angie Miles introduces us to Joseph Carter, a man who served almost 30 years in prison for something he didn't do.

JOSEPH CARTER: I couldn't believe it.

I really couldn't believe it, and in my heart, I just went to my knees.

ANGIE MILES: Joseph Carter describes the moment he heard the guilty verdict echo through a courtroom for a crime he knew he had not committed.

His ordeal began in November of 1989 in the picturesque Ocean View area of Norfolk, Virginia.

There was a vicious stabbing of two men in one of the motels near the water.

Carter had lived for a time in the efficiency next door, along with his young family.

Within a few days, Carter was sitting in the Norfolk jail, charged with murder.

That's despite conflicting witness accounts, no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and some crime scene evidence that was ignored.

JOSEPH CARTER: I was convicted on my mother's birthday, and my mom, it was just, it was too much for her.

ANGIE MILES: At the age of 31, the Navy veteran, husband and father of three with one child on the way says he was innocent but watching his future disappear, unable to stop it.

JOSEPH CARTER: Two life sentences and 35 years.

ANGIE MILES: But even as he braced for prison, he says he knew he could never give up trying to get out, trying to get his life back, trying to prove his innocence.

During Carter's incarceration, his losses multiplied.

Absent from his family, they struggled financially and emotionally.

He lost a brother and a son to gun violence.

He endured a divorce, and his mother did not live to see him make it home.

JOSEPH CARTER: And see, I know my mother died of a broke, (sobbing) a broken heart.

ANGIE MILES: Carter says, all the love, the discipline, and high expectations his parents had poured into him since childhood saw him through some of his darkest days.

JOSEPH CARTER: You have to be relentless.

You can't even think one second that you belong here.

"Boy, you better get them grades right," my mom.

“You better...” I hear my dad.

I can hear him.

That's what pushed me.

‘I'm not dying in here.

‘I'm not dying in here.

So you had to conjure up everything in you to survive it.

ANGIE MILES: He was also encouraged by other prisoners who helped him navigate the system.

He became an expert on the law and prolific at helping others with their cases.

JOSEPH CARTER: I defended some of the guys that go for disciplinary actions, things of that nature, because I learned the law, an inmate advisor.

So that's what I end up being.

ANGIE MILES: Carter says surviving prison meant being careful to stay out of trouble and not crossing anyone.

He says the greatest lessons included always being willing to help someone else, which he says always seemed to help him, as well.

JOSEPH CARTER: I had to because I want to get out, too, so if I help him, I can get help.

ANGIE MILES: After almost three decades behind bars, this relentless, innocent man found the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia.

They took his case and helped him to win parole.

One of the eyewitnesses later recanted her testimony, effectively admitting that she had been pressured to identify her old neighbor as the guilty one.

At the same time, the lead detective from the motel homicide was tried and convicted for corruption, including witness coercion in other cases, as well, and he served 12 years in prison.

After 27 years, after Greensville, Sussex 1, Sussex 2, Nottoway, and Buckingham, Joseph Carter walked out into the light and caught a bus for home.

In 2022, he got the news he'd been waiting to hear for 30 years Affirmation of his innocence took the form of a full pardon from Governor Ralph Northam.

JOSEPH CARTER: When I got my pardon, it was nothing like when I walked out of prison.

My wife was out the room.

I was lying in bed, and I was like, 'Baby, baby.'

Big tears like... (hands hitting) Oh, God.

It was like being reborn.

ANGIE MILES: Now with his new wife, Phyllis, by his side, he's starting to rebuild his life.

With a disability that he attributes directly to his imprisonment, he fights to manage his anger, and he says the justice system is in desperate need of change.

JOSEPH CARTER: Those public officials who are entrenched in the legal system, they need to be checked, and you can't have absolute immunity when you lied on the stand or you knew he was lying on the stand or you solicited a lie.

You put me in prison.

You took my life.

♪ KEYRIS MANZANARES: From wrongful convictions to issues with isolation, we shift our focus to advocates fighting to end solitary confinement in our state.

But the Virginia Department of Corrections says it's already phased out the practice.

Next, you'll hear from people who have experienced solitary confinement in Virginia and learn more about what is actually happening in our prisons.

VPM News Anchor Angie Miles reports.

ANGIE MILES: In the scenic rolling hills of Virginia are two of the most notorious prisons in the country.

Wallens Ridge and nearby Red Onion are "supermax" facilities operated by the Virginia Department of Corrections.

Intended for the worst, most dangerous offenders.

Demario Tyler served three years.

The last of it at Wallens Ridge.

ANGIE MILES: Demario Tyler has never met Natasha White, but she is one of his defenders.

White spent time in prison outside of Virginia and she is the coordinator of a statewide coalition of lawyers, faith leaders, and civil rights advocates working for laws against long term solitary confinement.

NATASHA WHITE: Good morning.

We're trying to pass a bill in Virginia to end long term confinement in... ANGIE MILES: Solitary confinement is keeping a person isolated in a cell that can be as small as a parking space most or all of each day deprived of meaningful interaction with others.

White is part of a growing movement to limit or eliminate solitary confinement.

NATASHA WHITE: Thank you.

You have a nice day.

So I was in solitary confinement for a total of four years.

However my husband was also in solitary confinement for 12 years.

And the impact it had on him when he came home is the reason I do this.

He couldn't function in a normal busy environment.

How do you handle that when you've been with somebody for 20 years and they come home totally traumatized with natural life?

DAVID SMITH: I spent 16 and a half months in solitary confinement.

I got out twice a week for a five minute shower, and then once every other week for a one hour time of rec time by myself.

It basically tore me mentally down.

And I saw people around me that suffered so much worse than I did.

There are people that would lay in bed all day.

Not even get up to use the toilet.

ANGIE MILES: Coalition Chair David Smith is describing a Virginia jail which is not operated by Virginia's prison system.

But his description is consistent with experiences shared by jail and prison inmates all over the country.

Solitary, isolation, segregation, restricted housing, all names for what prisoners call being "in the hole."

In 2011, the United Nations ruled solitary confinement amounts to torture and should be banned in most cases.

Symptoms like headaches, delusions, and suicidal thoughts can set in after just a few days.

But some in America's jails and prisons are held in isolation for weeks, months, or years.

In Virginia, one of the most publicized cases is that of Tyquine Lee.

In isolation for nearly two years at the end of which his mother says he had lost 30 pounds and was unable to speak except in barks, growls, and numbers.

NATASHA WHITE: The purpose of corrections is just that.

To deal with the underlying issue of why people are committing crimes.

Not to make them into people that can't take care of themselves.

ANGIE MILES: When comparing prisoners who experience solitary and those who never did, multiple studies correlate any time spent in isolation with increased risk of self harm, suicide, and early death.

Also higher unemployment and likelihood of repeat offenses.

Looking at a study from UNC Chapel Hill, those who spent time in solitary are 127% more likely to die of an opioid overdose within two weeks of leaving prison.

NATASHA WHITE: You should not be defined by the worst mistake you ever made in your life.

I don't care what it is.

We've all made mistakes.

But you cannot say you're truly a good person if you're willing to torture other people.

If you have human moral standards, and you're compassionate towards other human beings, then you will agree that solitary confinement needs to go.

KING SALIM KHALFANI: So, we want to reduce the use of solitary confinement in Virginia.

ANGIEfrom numerous faithsaders from numerous faiths have held news conferences and prayer vigils.

MIRANDA ELLIOTT RADER: To keep people in solitary confinement for more than just a few days is literally torturing people, definitionally torture, and we could end that practice.

Just chipping away at the cruelties that we've constructed for each other.

ANGIE MILES: Virginia's Department of Corrections has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country.

Meaning that those who serve time tend not to re-offend and return to prison.

VDOC has also earned awards and praise for progressive education and reentry programs.

But what about solitary confinement?

LOIS FEGAN: No, the term you mentioned doesn't apply here.

So our program... ANGIE MILES: This brings us to the debate over the definition of solitary confinement, which for some is merely an exercise in semantics.

There is a general consensus among reputable health and human rights organizations that solitary confinement is 22 or more hours in isolation without meaningful human contact.

But Virginia's prisons claim inmates only spend 20 hours per day in isolation.

That's a two hour difference.

LOIS FEGAN: So our program actually goes above and beyond that because we offer at least four hours every day of meaningful, structured/unstructured programming for all the inmates that are in this specialized secure pod.

So our program was called “restrictive housing” and now we've called it “restorative housing.” ANGIE MILES: The prisoner's rights community calls the distinction between 20 hours and 22 hours meaningless, especially if time outside the cell is also spent in isolation.

Legislation that advocates have proposed for Virginia say every inmate is entitled to at least four hours of meaningful interaction outside of a cell.

And if solitary confinement should be necessary for extreme situations, not minor infractions, it should last no more than 15 days.

LOIS FEGAN: But just to reiterate that we do offer the most progressive program in the country of opportunities, programs, and pathways for every single inmate that's in our care, but particularly the ones that come to us in sort of a crisis.

Whether it be a difficult situation, a behavioral issue.

ANGIE MILES: Demario Tyler has been in crisis his whole life.

This is the crime that landed him in prison.

He broke into two restaurants in 2016 looking for money or food.

Before that, he'd spent more than 10 years in foster care.

His mother died when he was 10.

His autobiography is painted in shades of anger, frustration, sadness, and worry in the letters he's written from prison over several years.

In 2019, The Washington Post featured excerpts of Tyler's letters without using his name.

He wrote "It's taking all the mental power I have to cope here."

"These people make me want to hurt them one minute due to the treatment I'm receiving, and the next minute I want to hurt myself."

ANGIE MILES: Tyler finished his time at Wallens Ridge in 2020, but is now re-incarcerated in Hampton on new charges.

Those stem from when he called police to stop him from trying to kill himself.

Six months after his release from Wallen's Ridge.

While at Wallens Ridge, Tyler's way out of isolation was the Prison Step Down Program.

Through which inmates earn their way back to general population.

Step Down is a prized element of what VDOC calls restorative housing.

LOIS FEGAN: The core component of the program is called interactive journaling.

And so the inmates have the opportunity to do it together with other people in the restorative housing program.

ANGIE MILES: The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a class action suit to end the Step Down program.

They allege that the program in practice is arbitrary, sometimes retaliatory, and mostly a ruse to keep inmates in solitary confinement indefinitely.

ANGIE MILES: Do you feel comfortable saying everyone who's incarcerated in Virginia's prison system is treated humanely?

No issues with people being placed in a restorative housing or segregated situation against their will if that individual does not pose a real threat to the institution?

LOIS FEGAN: I'm comfortable saying that.

I feel that all the inmates in our system are treated humanely and fairly with respect and with compassion.

And again our whole mission, you can see it on the wall here in this building, is we're in the business of helping people be better.

ANGIE MILES: Letters and calls from inmates and family members allege that restorative housing and the Step Down program don't work the way administration describes.

NATASHA WHITE: As a formerly incarcerated woman I know that the issues that surround incarceration are not for me if they don't involve me.

I'm the only one that can tell you the truth.

ANGIE MILES: To some, people convicted of crimes deserve whatever happens to them.

It's also true that people serving time can have credibility issues when they make accusations of mistreatment.

White says ending solitary confinement should be less about prisoners' credibility and more about our regard for basic human rights.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Because of the nature of solitary confinement, or restorative housing as the Virginia Department of Corrections refers to the practice, some may think it would be the safest place for prisoners confined to a cell alone.

But in the case of Anwar Phillips, he was discovered dead in his cell.

So what happened?

VPM News Anchor Angie Miles explores the effectiveness of oversight in Virginia's prisons.

A warning to our viewers, the following story includes material that may be difficult to watch.

(birds chirping) ANGIE MILES: In the hours before daybreak on January 3rd.

PRISON NURSE: This is Red Onion State Prison.

We have an offender who is in full cardiac arrest.

ANGIE MILES: At Virginia's Red Onion Prison.

PRISON NURSE: We're doing CPR right now.

911 OPERATOR: How old is he?

PRISON NURSE: We found him.

Oh God, I don't even know 'cause I've been too busy doing CPR.

ANGIE MILES: Anwar Phillips was dead.

PRISON NURSE: Nothing.

Nothing.

He's stiff as a board, so.

VERNETTA PHILLIPS: I was at work and his father called me.

It took him six hours to call me because he said he did not know how to articulate the words that our son was dead.

ANGIE MILES: But what happened to Anwar?

The 36-year-old was confined to a wheelchair.

He was isolated in a singular cell in a maximum security prison where inmates are checked every 40 minutes or less, but where Phillips had likely died hours before the 911 call.

NATASHA WHITE: You hear the nurse screaming, "He's stiff as a board," but you do not hear the nurse talking about the rope that they found tied around his neck.

She claimed he was in cardiac arrest.

He was cold.

He had been dead for so long.

ANGIE MILES: Natasha White is director of community engagement for Interfaith Action for Human Rights.

She's been trying to get answers in the death of Anwar Phillips.

NATASHA WHITE: He was killed in a solitary confinement cell that you cannot get in without a key.

You have to make that make sense.

It doesn't.

And now they are charging another young man for his death.

Well, how did he get out of his locked cell to get in somebody else's locked cell and kill them?

ANGIE MILES: The cause of death now listed as strangulation, was reportedly delivered by a handmade rope.

The named suspect, William Pettigrew, an inmate, who like Phillips, was serving time for murder, locked in a solitary cell at Red Onion.

Anwar Phillips' mother, who preferred being interviewed off camera, is not convinced the story of his death makes sense.

VERNETTA PHILLIPS: Solitary confinement should have been the safest place in the world for him.

What I want is the truth.

My child is dead.

I deserve the truth.

ANGIE MILES: According to data provided by the Virginia Department of Corrections, Anwar Phillips is among more than a dozen inmates murdered in Virginia State-run prisons in just over a decade.

Recent homicides include 63-year-old Mark Grethen, and 47-year-old Gregory Pierce in 2021.

Also 62-year-old Charles Mitchell, just days after Anwar Phillips.

But in the last decade, hundreds of prisoners have been seriously injured or died of a wide range of causes including hepatitis and COVID-19.

Examples include several who died at Lawrenceville, and three women at the Fluvanna Correctional Center in 2019.

Two of the three had recently filed lawsuits against DOC for alleged medical negligence.

Virginia Corrections administrators often cite legal constraints and privacy issues as reasons they can't divulge certain information.

But prison rights advocates say that in Virginia and nationally, many departments lack outside oversight and consequently, transparency.

This can make it difficult to know how many people are dying in prison or from what causes.

Suicide appears to be the leading cause of death in both jails and state-run prisons.

It is on the rise and so is drug use.

PHIL WILAYTO: You got a big problem in jails, and prisons in Virginia with drug overdoses.

We're getting a lot of letters from prisoners asking us to focus some attention on this.

One prisoner suggested that prisoners should be taught to perform CPR, because they're often the ones who are right there when a crisis happens.

ANGIE MILES: Phil Wilayto is publisher and editor of "The Virginia Defender," which keeps track of injuries and deaths of individuals in state custody.

PHIL WILAYTO: Out of the 40 facilities, there are three, Nottoway, Augusta and Buckingham that have no air conditioning.

Now, this past summer, you know, we hit a hundred degrees several times, and in these buildings, it'll be another 10 degrees above that.

There was one case in Nottaway this summer where a man passed away and the prisoner said it was due to the heat, although the administration said it was due to other causes.

And I don't think an investigation ever went any further than that.

ANGIE MILES: Virginia's Department of Corrections has sat for an interview with Focal Point in the past, but declined to do so for this report.

Some of the information on prison deaths came to VPM from a Freedom of Information Act request of corrections officials.

Although VPM is still waiting for answers to most of our questions.

Among the data provided by the department, are numbers that show prisoner deaths and serious injuries much lower than in adjoining states.

Despite this relative success, Wilayto and White agree that most Americans have a hands-off approach to the way prisons operate.

That translates to thousands of those behind bars being written off rather than rehabilitated.

NATASHA WHITE: People that are incarcerated are automatically dehumanized as soon as you put handcuffs on them and they start calling you inmate, that people just don't care.

And they fail to realize that this is the most inhumane practice in the world.

PHIL WILAYTO: It's a closed system.

And if a prisoner is and does speak out and does file a lot of grievances or has some mental issues and is acting up and gets targeted as a troublemaker and gets, you know, picked on, there's very little recourse for them or for their family.

So outside oversight is a crying demand of prisoners and something that we're trying to promote.

ANGIE MILES: Prisoners do speak out.

Anwar Phillips wrote to prison officials and outside advocates outlining grievances against correctional officers, many of whom he called corrupt or racist.

And at least one, Phillips claimed, said he would only leave prison in a body bag, which in reality, he did.

PHIL WILAYTO: So that brings you to another issue is guard brutality.

Now, you know, not all guards are bad.

Not all guards are sadistic, but when you have them, you have almost no recourse.

ANGIE MILES: And who is guarding Virginia's prisoners?

The National Bureau of Labor Statistics says, "A high school diploma and an absence of felony convictions are the primary requirements to be a state prison guard."

Like most industries, there are persistent staffing shortages, presumably adding to the workload and the stress of working with offenders who can sometimes be violent.

Research and experience show the work conditions can fuel corruption for some.

When visitation was halted during the pandemic, DOC data shows that positive prisoner drug tests actually increased.

Raising the question of who is bringing drugs into state prisons?

In the past decade, numerous corrections officers have been charged with crimes ranging from having sex with inmates to smuggling drugs or other contraband into state facilities.

In the DOC's own reporting, more employees report feeling unsafe because of their colleagues' behavior, than because of the inmates themselves.

NATASHA WHITE: Prisons should be run by trauma-informed care staff, licensed social workers, licensed nurses, psychiatrists.

Those are the type of people that should run the jail.

The people with the badge should just be opening the doors, because clearly they don't have it in them to help or truly rehabilitate somebody else.

Also, I know plenty of correction officers that start in the Department of Corrections, normal and loving just like us, but the wear and tear of the trauma that happens in prison, it affects everybody involved.

How do you stand in the lion's den and not get bit?

ANGIE MILES: White and Wilayto speak about the letters that pour in from prisoners who claim mistreatment, feeling unsafe and believing their lives are in danger.

When asked how people convicted of crimes can be more reliable than the professionals who manage them, White offers this.

NATASHA WHITE: They have the most to lose.

They are going nowhere.

They are writing about the people that give them food, about the people that lock their door, and about the people that have the power to come in their cell with numerous other people and beat them to death and get away with it.

ANGIE MILES: To some, prisons exist to protect the public from dangerous individuals.

And what happens to those convicted of crimes, is not a major concern.

For others like White and Wilayto, prison is responsible for rehabilitation, and minimally, for not hastening the deaths of people not sentenced to death.

And for a few what happens in prison, can be as great a crime or even worse than what led their loved ones to serve time there.

VERNETTA PHILLIPS: Anwar made his mistakes.

I do not condone any negative or violent thing that he did, but he was still my child.

As long as he was alive, there was hope that he could have been a better human being.

The person that murdered my son, they took my hope.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: We've learned about systemic issues in Virginia's prison system and met people fighting for change and families hoping for justice.

To share your ideas and watch more episodes, visit our website, vpm.org/focalpoint.

I'm Keyris Manzanares.

Thanks for watching.

Production funding for VPM News Focal Point is provided by ♪ ♪ ♪