Federal prisoner, 67, in solitary confinement for 35 years, dies
An inmate at the federal ADX Supermax prison in southern Colorado, who had been held in solitary confinement for 35 years, has died at age 67.
Thomas Silverstein died May 11 at St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood.
Silverstein, was admitted to the hospital in February to undergo surgery, said Dan Pruett, Jefferson County chief deputy coroner.
Silverstein remained at the hospital and was in intensive care when he died, Pruett said.
In the 1980s, Silverstein was convicted of killing two inmates and a prison guard. The prison guard, Merle Clutts, was fatally stabbed Oct. 22, 1983, at the maximum security prison in Marion, Ill. With no federal death penalty in place at the time of Clutts’ murder, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) placed Silverstein in indefinite solitary confinement, where he remained until being taken to the hospital in February.
“Don’t call it solitary; call it isolation,” said Pete Earley, author of “Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison.”
Earley had known and corresponded with Silverstein for 32 years. The past three years, Earley had been working with Silverstein on the inmate’s autobiography.
“Tom Silverstein is an important figure because his killing of Merle Clutts in Marion really set the stage for Supermax,” Earley said. “He became a mythical figure in the Bureau of Prisons. He was seen by inmates as a superhero, a hero of the Ar yan Brotherhood, refusing to bend to the BOP. In the eyes of the BOP, he became a hated figure.” Silverstein entered prison in 1978 on an armedrobbery conviction. Over the years he was held in Marion; Leavenworth, Kan.; Atlanta; and Colorado. In Leavenworth, his cell became known as “The Silverstein Suite,” where the lights were kept on 24 hours a day. He also served time earlier at the San Quentin prison in California.
In July 2005, Silverstein was moved to Supermax in Florence to a soundproof cell. In 2007, he filed a civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver seeking to end his isolation. The lawsuit, filed on his behalf by a team of lawyers from the University of Denver, ignited debate about whether prolonged isolation — Silverstein’s was indefinite — violated the U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
“I was 23 when I was sentenced to 15 years for that robbery,” Silverstein wrote in a declaration as part of the lawsuit. “My share of the proceeds was a few hundred dollars. My life on the outside was over forever.”
In Leavenworth, Silverstein said life was divided along racial lines. He joined the Aryan Brotherhood and stabbed a black inmate to death in 1979. He was soon convicted in the deaths of two other inmates, although one conviction was overturned. Shortly after Clutts’ murder, Silverstein was transferred to Atlanta, where he was kept in a windowless cell deep underground, and his life of isolation was underway. The cell was about the size of a king-size mattress, according to court records.
In the lawsuit, Silverstein said he was allowed to wear underwear but no clothes. A bright light buzzed over his head at all times. He was denied social visits and telephone calls. His only reading material was a Bible. In Atlanta for four years, Silverstein eventually was allowed art supplies and a radio that was limited to religious programs. He began practicing yoga.
Transferred back to Leavenworth, Silverstein had his own outdoor recreation area measuring 17 feet by 14 feet and sealed by 20-foothigh concrete walls topped with bars and wire mesh. Two surveillance cameras followed his movements 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He spent 15 years in the Silverstein Suite. By 2001, the BOP allowed Silverstein 300 minutes of phone calls per month. Guards typically would bring a phone to his cell.
Leavenworth became a medium-security prison in 2005, and Silverstein was transferred to Colorado, where his new cell was 9 feet by 10 feet and his recreation area allowed him to walk 10 steps. Phone time was cut back to 15 minutes per month.
“Amazingly, he endured his total, ultimate isolation time,” Earley said. “While you don’t agree with what he did — there’s no justification of killing a prison officer — you have to marvel” at his resiliency.
Earley recalled receiving a communique from Silverstein written at 2 a.m. in which the inmate admitted he should be getting sleep but he “had so much to do.”
“Imagine, in isolation and so much to do,” Earley said.