The State Correctional Institution at Rockview is the only designated execution site in Pennsylvania, said institution supervisor Jeff Rackovan. The death penalty is an option only in first-degree murder convictions, said Mike Lukens, press secretary for Department of State Correctional Institutions. Of the nearly 230 inmates on death row in Pennsylvania, four of them are female who reside in a correctional institution in Muncy, Lukens said.
Male inmates reside in correctional institutions throughout Pennsylvania.
Prisoners are then transported to Rockview within days of their execution date, Lukens said. We do not want the staff dealing with inmates that are scheduled to be executed. However, most Pennsylvania inmates on death row will take years, even decades, to reach Rockview. Death penalty sentences are automatically reviewed by the state supreme court, and everyone on death row has an appeal pending, said Sean Connolly, press secretary for Attorney General Mike Fisher. Fisher, who helped to draft the current Pennsylvania death penalty statute, addressed the state Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 22.