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Alabama’s Oldest Prisoner Dies in Hospital

Loaded on July 15, 2025 published in Prison Legal News July, 2025, page 59
Filed under: Geriatric Classification, Totality of Conditions, Age, Compassionate Release. Location: Alabama.

Floyd Lee Coleman, 106, passed away on May 19, 2025, at a hospital near the William Donaldson Correctional Facility, where he was a prisoner in Bessemer, Alabama. Coleman, who had spent more than forty-five years locked up, was the state’s oldest prisoner—and likely among the oldest in the country. 

In 1978, Coleman was arrested for the rape and murder of Quintina Steele, a 7-year-old girl. Although Coleman was originally sentenced to death by electric chair, that sentence was overturned after the Supreme Court of the U.S. decided Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625 (1980), which held that the death sentence cannot be imposed if the jury was not permitted to consider a lesser offence for a verdict. Coleman pleaded guilty before he could be retried, and he received a life sentence without parole in 1984. 

The U.S. prison population has been “graying” for at least the last three decades, with the percentage of prisoners who are 55 or older growing from 3% to 15% during that time. One in six prisoners—nearly 200,000 people—is serving a life sentence, and 56,245 prisoners are serving life without parole. While prisons are unhealthy at any age, incarceration is particularly dangerous for older adults; in addition, prisoners who are 65 and older are the least likely group to be re-arrested after being released.   

 

Sources: WVTM, Prison Policy Initiative, The Sentencing Project

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  2. From the Editor, by Paul Wright
  3. Free Calls in Massachusetts Lead to 
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  4. $12 Million for Former California Prisoner 
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  5. 14th Alabama Sheriff’s Employee Pleads Guilty 
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  6. $340,000 for Former Massachusetts Prisoner 
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  7. Latest Jail Booking Info Is Based on New Data Source
  8. JPay Loses Bid to Revoke Class Certification in Washington Prisoners’ Challenge to Crummy Products and Service
  9. Trump Pardons Virginia Sheriff Convicted 
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  10. Over One-Third of Older Texas Prisoners 
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  11. New Jersey Supreme Court Refuses Guard’s Challenge to Firing 
for Failing to Report Kiss with Prisoner, by Douglas Ankney
  12. Oregon Prisoners Can Now Seek Economic Damages 
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  13. Bold New Orleans Escape Calls Attention 
to Poor Jail Conditions
  14. Sixth Guard Sentenced in West Virginia Killing 
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  15. D.C. District Court Dismisses Class Action Against BOP 
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  16. Gag Order on Tennessee Attorney for Criticizing CoreCivic 
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  17. Nearly $60,000 Awarded to Mother Of Dead Missouri Prisoner 
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  18. New York City Loses Bid to Withhold Jail Records, by Douglas Ankney
  19. Eleventh Circuit Announces New Deliberate Indifference 
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for Skipped Anti-Seizure Meds, by Douglas Ankney
  20. Ninth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Arizona Challenge 
to Private Prisons
  21. Wiccan Nevada Prisoner Wins 18-Year Fight for Religious Items, by Clark Nelly
  22. California Prison Plagued by Toxic Water and Chronic Illness
  23. Former Prisoner Informant Appointed Deputy Director of BOP
  24. $22.5 Million Verdict Arrives Too Late for 
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  25. Washington Jail Settles DOJ Allegations of ADA Noncompliance 
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  26. $42,000 Paid to Wisconsin Prisoner Allowed 
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  27. First Circuit Revives Rhode Island Prisoner’s 
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  29. Ongoing Detainee Deaths Push Rikers Island 
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  30. Trump’s “Border Czar” Was 
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  31. Colorado Passes New Law to Expand 
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  40. First of 10 Guards Charged with Killing 
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  41. Third Circuit Rejects U.S. Sentencing Commission 
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