Green Haven Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison in New York , United States. The prison is located in the Town of Beekman in Dutchess County . The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision lists the address as Route 216 , Stormville, New York 12582. This prison housed New York's execution chamber during the time the state briefly had the death penalty (but never used it) in the post- Furman era. It was originally a federal prison and now houses maximum security inmates. Green Haven Correctional Facility also operated a Hot Kosher Foods Program; but no longer does as of 2020. However, because of this, the prison had a large Jewish population. Yale Law School operates the Green Haven Prison Project, a series of seminars among Yale law students and Green Haven inmates on law and policy issues concerning prisons and criminal law.
6-427: There have been at least two deaths of correction officers in the line of duty. The first was of Donna Payant on May 15, 1981, who disappeared while working at the prison. Her body was later found in a garbage dump 20 miles away, sexually violated and strangled, similar to the bodies of victims of serial killer Lemuel Smith , an inmate at the prison. A bite mark on Payant's chest also matched Smith's tooth pattern. It
12-509: A Beekman Fire Department ladder truck to break in and get access. The tower was closed for investigation, and the death was deemed a suicide . In the early 1970's, New York's electric chair " Old Sparky " was moved here from Sing Sing Correctional Facility . Capital punishment was reinstated in New York in 1995 when Governor George Pataki signed a new statute into law, which provided for execution by lethal injection . On June 24, 2004, in
18-608: The case People v. LaValle , the New York Court of Appeals struck down the statute as unconstitutional under the New York Constitution (at the time, only two individuals were under a sentence of death). Although seven individuals were sentenced to death, no one was executed, and the Court of Appeals later commuted the sentence of the final individual under a sentence of death in New York on October 23, 2007, in
24-947: The case People v. John Taylor . In July 2008, Governor David Paterson issued an executive order requiring the disestablishment of death row and the closure of the state's execution chamber at Green Haven Correctional Facility. Inmates at Green Haven Correctional Facility can get jobs through the NYSDOCCS Correctional industries. The jobs they can be assigned to include working in an upholstery shop, as well as furniture manufacturing. Inmates incarcerated at this facility can also receive vocational training, such as barbering, building maintenance, culinary arts, carpentry, computer operator, computer repair, custodial maintenance, electrical, painting and decorating, printing, and auto technology. Inmates may also earn GEDs or college credits. Prisoners also receive counseling as well as drug and alcohol treatment. The Alternatives to Violence Project
30-428: Was conceived at the prison in 1975 as a workshop. The Bard Prison Initiative , which seeks to reduce rates of recidivism and offer prisoners college education and tutoring, operates at multiple prisons including Green Haven. Inmates and correctional officers at Green Haven were featured in the 1985 PBS Frontline program A Class Divided . The Facility is made reference to in the 1993 film Carlito's Way . It
36-466: Was determined that Smith had sexually assaulted and strangled Payant in the prison chaplain's office before putting her body in a trash bag and throwing it out with the trash. On January 31, 2007, a correction officer in Tower One was found dead due to an apparent gunshot wound to the head. Fire and police were dispatched around 10:30 p.m., when they found the hatch to the ladder blocked, they used
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