Solitary is torture. SCOTUS is saying the Eighth Amendment has no standing.
this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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I don't know anything about this guy, but I'm not sure what alternatives there are to solitary in some cases. When an inmate is so violent that they can't be around other people without hurting them, what do you do? I've encountered a handful of inmates like that.
Isolating a prisoner and putting them in solitary are two entirely different things. In solitary, you are given absolutely no stimulation. Often not even a bed to sleep on. The lights never turn off. Prisoners scream through vents at each other just to hear another human voice. It's absolutely torture.
Leaving someone in solitary for a few months tends to do that to people.
But the answer is as it always was. 100 foot by 100 foot cage to exercise in and talk to other inmates through the fence.
They were denying him basic living conditions common to large zoo animals. If you are so profoundly mentally ill that you can't be allowed to spend time in a slightly larger enclosure, it seems highly unlikely that you are mentally competent enough to be convicted in the first place.
The justification for this is also pathetically flimsy and should be easily rejected with just a moments thought.
Exercise has been deemed a necessity which cannot be denied to prisoners. He was kept in solitary without being allowed out for 3 years, but it's OK because it was many small punishments served back to back without relief, not one big punishment. So, if we can deny necessities for extended periods of time, that means we can also withhold food or water for years at a time, as long we're doing it by stacking punishments and not just starving someone to death over a single incident.
I don't understand why everyone is so surprised lol. America still practises slavery for fucks sake.
If you are so profoundly mentally ill that you can’t be allowed to spend time in a slightly larger enclosure, it seems highly unlikely that you are mentally competent enough to be convicted in the first place.
I disagree there, by all accounts his mental health deteriorated in prison, not before. I mean, I'm sure he was a bit fucked up before, but solitary is what had him smearing shit all over himself and his cell.
The description in the article seems to indicate that he was seriously mentally ill to begin with, and only got worse with solitary confinement. I don't have enough information to say whether he was actually mentally competent to stand trial. My point was just that if his case is so extreme that they can't manage to get him out of his cell on a regular basis, then I have to question the mental state that got him in there in the first place. And on the other hand, if they can provide the basic necessity that he has as a right to, then there isn't any excuse to withhold it. Find another punishment.
That said, on reflection, I suppose I was oversimplifying a bit. Someone can be violent, aggressive, and stubborn to the point of being self-destructive and still have the mental capacity to understand the world around them, the nature of their decisions, the consequences they have, and the difference between right and wrong.
They are admitting in public to committing crimes of corruption.
They should have no problem serving their time in solitary.
Lock them up, start with Clarence Thomas
~~Did we just move the standard to three years? Didn't we get it down to three months max at one point?~~
Nope apparently it's not a violation of your constitutional rights if they just string together a bunch of solitary punishments. Because that's not the world's biggest fucking loophole.
Nothing cruel and unusual about that...
checks for skulls on uniforms
Good news, not on the uniform.
Lots of skull tattoos on the cops tho
I had a client who did 3 or 4 in solitary during his 24 year stretch for murder.
He said he told the prison doctor "Don't take me off my meds. If I'm off my meds, I become evil." He said they did it anyway due to budget cuts, and he really fucked up a couple guards when his psychotic symptoms came back full force from being taken off his meds cold turkey.
His sentence was originally 20 years, but they added 5 more for the attack on the guards. Most of that additional sentence was served in solitary confinement. He got let out on the 24th year for good behavior and that's when I got him on my caseload. One of our first treatment goals was "I want to have feelings again."
He did a great job turning his life around on the outside and went out of his way to help others. Still hustled a bit.. He has an alzheimer's diagnosis looming over his head, and wants to go out "Being a good person for once" in the maybe 5 year window before he loses himself to the disease.
The truth is, anyone could've ended up in his position with the circumstances that lead to the very heinous act he committed. I learned from that job that we all live in the grey, and black and white thinking is just a construct we lie to ourselves about. Anyone is capable of extreme actions when pushed beyond their threshold and/or influenced by a psychotic episode/drug-induced psychosis.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Over the objections of its three liberal justices, the Supreme Court on Monday denied a petition from a prisoner confined for years without the chance to exercise outside his cell.
It rejected his lawsuit alleging that keeping him in his windowless cell except for an occasional trip for a shower violated the Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
Johnson, convicted for his part in a home invasion, has profound mental illness and was placed in solitary confinement in Pontiac Correctional Center as a result of multiple disciplinary infractions.
… Worse still, Johnson’s dire physical condition led to further yard restrictions, as prison guards faulted him for being disruptive and having an unclean cell.”
“This vicious cycle,” Jackson wrote, continued until Johnson was transferred to a specialized mental health treatment unit, where his condition improved.
But a panel of the 7th Circuit said a prison’s ability to deny the opportunity to exercise for a set period of time for serious infractions does not violate the Constitution, nor does “stacking” such punishments.
The original article contains 591 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!