Officials move inmate stuck on US death row for years

By MICHAEL TARM
AP Legal Affairs Writer

CHICAGO (AP) — Prison officials have moved a former drug dealer convicted of killing a 16-year-old Texas girl off federal death row to serve a life sentence in another prison amid criticism he should have been moved years ago after a judge deemed him intellectually disabled and vacated his death sentence. The transfer comes two weeks after The Associated Press first highlighted Bruce Webster’s case, reporting that chronic bureaucracy left him stuck in solitary confinement on federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, since the judge’s 2019 ruling. His lawyers say the prison told them Tuesday that Webster had been transferred to a less restrictive prison in Pennsylvania. Lawyer Steven Wells said he was “delighted” but that the move should have happened “a long time ago.”