Two of the most significant inmates rights cases in the past century are Sandin v. Conner and Whitley v. Albers.
In the case of Sandin v. Conner, DeMont Conner, an inmate at a maximum security correctional facility in Hawaii, was subjected to a strip search in 1987. During the search he directed angry and foul language at the officer. Conner was charged with high misconduct and sentenced to 30 days of segregation by the adjustment committee. Conner was not allowed to present witnesses in his defense. Conner completed the 30-day segregation sentence, after which he requested a review of his case. Upon review, prison administration found no evidence to support the misconduct claim. The State District Court backed the decision, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that Sandin had a liberty interest in remaining free from disciplinary segregation. This case is significant because it confronts the question of which constitutional rights individuals retain when they are incarcerated. In Sandin v. Conner, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that prisoners have a right to due process only when “atypical and significant deprivation” has occurred. Prisons must now be vigilant in protecting the rights of inmates. It is a delicate matter in the sense that, when an individual enters prison, their rights to liberty are by and large being forfeited. The rights in question are important to prisoners because prisons are closed environments where by nature their freedoms are already very limited. They need a well-defined set of rights so that prisons do not unduly infringe on their liberty. Without court intervention, prison administrators would likely not have allowed this particular right, as it adds another layer of bureaucracy that can be seen as interfering with the efficiency of their job. Also, it could lead to a glut of prisoners claiming violations of their rights under the court ruling.
The case of Whitley v. Albers concerns the use of force by prison staffers on inmates. Harold Whitley, a corrections officer at the Oregon State Penitentiary, shot and wounded inmate Gerald Albers in the knee during a disturbance in 1983. This brought into question several factors, including whether there was a need for force, the relationship between the need and amount of force used, the extent of injury inflicted, threat of safety to other inmates, and effort to avoid a violent response. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the prison, concluding that guards reacting to a prison disturbance must act maliciously and sadistically with intent to cause harm to qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.
Pell v. Procunier is a significant case in corrections as it confirms that denying media interviews with inmates does not violate the inmates’ or journalists’ constitutional rights, as long other means of communication, such as mail and visitation, are permitted. This case controlled the First Amendment rights of the inmates and the media, but the court justified it because it reduced the rights
Joshua DeShaney's mother filed a lawsuit on his behalf, claiming that because DSS had taken no action to prevent the violence affecting her son, they had violated his right to liberty without the due process gauranteed to him by the Fourteenth Amendment. Joshua's mother sued under “42 U.S.C. 1983, alleg...
Lantz v. Coleman is a court case that took place in Connecticut in September of 2007. This case focuses on constitutionality and legality of force-feeding prison inmates whom choose to starve themselves.
Wright, Paul. "Prison Legal News - Legal Articles, Cases and Court Decisions." Prison Legal News. Prison Legal News, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. .
Shalev, S. (2011). Solitary Confinement and Supermax Prisons: A Human Rights and Ethical Analysis. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 11, 151-183. doi:10.1080/15228932.2011.537582
The United States’ justice system is facing a nationwide epidemic with the usage of solitary confinement. The state of New York is beginning to take steps to completely remove the practice from its correctional facilities. Public opinion of the banning is divided. Many see the use of solitary as a necessary evil to aid the rehabilitation of prisoners and to separate violent and nonviolent inmates. These individuals, along with prison guards, fear that the banning of the isolation unit will cause violence amongst the general population to increase. Other states such as Maine and Mississippi have significantly reduced the usage of solitary confinement without an increase in prisoner violence. This has led many people to question the effectiveness
The United States Supreme Court, in Howes v. Fields, rejected a per se rule that questioning a prison inmate in a room isolated from the general prison population about events occurring outside the prison is custodial interrogation. The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution requires that a person in “custodial interrogation” be read Miranda rights, those rights which come from the case of Miranda v. Arizona. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that a prisoner is in custody within the meaning of Miranda if the prisoner is taken away from the general prison area and questioned about events that occurred outside the prison. The Sixth Circuit held that the interview of Fields in the room was a “custodial interrogation” because isolation from the rest of the prison combined with questioning about allegation outside the prison makes such an interrogation custodial per se. The term “custody” refers to circumstances where the danger of coercion is present. A court will look to the objective circumstances of the interrogation to find whether a person is in custody. In order for statements made ...
The system of the Prison Industrial Complex operates within the law. The law allows private companies to infiltrate the prison, while keeping prisoners in a subjugated position. The law, under the Eight Amendment obligates prison officials to provide prisoners with “adequate” medical care. This principle applies regardless of whether the medical care provided is by governmental employees or by private medical staff under contract with the government (Project, 2012). If prisoners believe they are being denied their constitutio...
The past two decades have engendered a very serious and historic shift in the utilization of confinement within the United States. In 1980, there were less than five hundred thousand people confined in the nation’s prisons and jails. Today we have approximately two million and the numbers are still elevating. We are spending over thirty five billion annually on corrections while many other regime accommodations for education, health
"Prison Legal News - Legal articles, cases and court decisions." Prison Legal News - Legal articles, cases and court decisions. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 May 2014. .
From the moment an innocent individual enters the criminal justice system they are pressured by law enforcement whose main objective is to obtain a conviction. Some police interrogation tactics have been characterized as explicit violations of the suspect’s right to due process (Campbell and Denov 2004). However, this is just the beginning. Additional forms of suffering under police custody include assaults,
In the 1970s and 1980s, a massive amount of inmates began fillin up the United States prison systems. This huge rate of growth in this short amount of time, has greatly contributed to the prison overcrowding that the United States faces today. In fact, the prisons are still filled to the seams. This enormous flood of inmates has made it practically impossible for prison officials to keep up with their facilities and supervise their inmates. One of the main reasons why many prisons have become overcrowded is because of states’ harsh criminal laws and parole practices (Cohen). “One in every 100 American adults is behind bars, the highest incarceration rate in the world” (Cohen). The amount of inmates in corrections systems, throughout the nation, sky-rocketed to 708 percent between 1972 and 2008. Today, there are about 145,000 inmates occupying areas only designed for 80,000 (Posner). Peter Mosko, “an assistant professor of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice” (Frazier) stated, “America, with 2.3 million people behind bars, has more prisoners than soldiers” (Frazier). There have been studies that have shown “there are more men and women in prison than ever before. The number of inmates grew by an average of 1,600 a week. The U. S. has the highest rate of crime in the world” (Clark). Because of this influx in inmates, many prisoners’ rights groups have filed lawsuits charging that “overcrowded prisons violate the Constitution’s 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment” (Clark). It is clear that the United States corrections system needs to be reformed in order to eliminate this problem. Prison overcrowding is a serious issue in society due to the fact it affects prison ...
Wiseman, S. R. (2014, March). Pretrial Detention and the Right to Be Monitored. Yale Law Journal, 123(5), 1-56. Retrieved from http://www.yalelawjournal.org/essay/pretrial-detention-and-the-right-to-be-monitored
The case of Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436 [1966]) is one of the most important cases in history. It brought about prominent rights that are still existent today in 2015 regarding interrogations and custody. The results of this case are still seen in the current criminal justice system. However, even though the rights that were given to the system by the court, there are still instances today in which these Miranda rights are violated. The concept of Miranda has evolved a lot from a court case to a code used by law enforcement during custodies and investigations.
Given from what I have researched for this paper the restrictions on freedom of speech is agreeable. The restrictions are dependent on context and variable situations. From my past experiences, people cannot tell the difference between regular speech and those that inspire aggressiveness. There should be a balance between citizen’s freedoms of speech. An example is that different people should have different levels of freedom of speech. For those who write, print, or speak to the public should have the greatest amount of speech freedom. They should be able to voice out their opinions and fact to the public. Those who have criminal records should have their speech right limited because they will the most likely candidates to spark disorder and endanger public safety. In a different perspective using convicts, we will examine how inmates rights are effected after incarceration. The overall objective needs of a prison is to be secure and at ease. In 1987 Supreme Court Case Turner v. Safley argued that the prison guards were limiting their free speech by not allowing them to send letter mails to each other. The ruling of this case lead to the creation called the “Turner Standard.” The Turner Standard consist of a series of four questions that depicts whether the contents of speech or prison policy is considered constitutional. The four standards are: the policy in question must address a valid issue of prison security or rehabilitation, inmates must have alternate means of communication, courts must consider the impact of speech on other prisoners, guards, and prison resources, and are there other alternatives that would not restrict a prisoner’s freedom of expression. In another Supreme Court case there was a questioning of reading materials in prison library. In this case each prisoner has the right to get readings like books and magazines. The limitations is