Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon filed a lawsuit...

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon filed a lawsuit in Circuit Court, accusing the Italian clothing company Benetton and Gonzaga University law professor Speedy Rice of deceiving the state in their use of inmates at the Potosi Correctional Centre. Nixon said that Toscani had not specified that inmates would be used for an advertising campaign when he requested permission to photograph and interview inmates at Potosi ."Clearly our prisons are not allowed commercial endeavours and prison officials would have never allowed entry had they been told the truth about the project," Nixon said.The ads appeared in a supplement that accompanied the February issue of Talk magazine. The supplement includes interviews with the inmates and asks such questions as "Do you consider yourself a lucky person?" and "Are you afraid of dying?" North Carolina filed a formal complaint against Benetton. State law prohibits convicts to have any sort of contact with their victim's relatives, the complaint said. However the catalogue and the photographs published on Talk forced the families to come into such contact. Benetton said the death row photographs "aim at giving back a human face to the prisoners."