A Fed Ct held that Solitary Confinement Can't Violate the 8th Amendment, no matter how long, its impact on health or rationale for imposing it. Man Held 27 Yrs Hopes Rulers at Sup Ct are Less Barbaric

From [NYT] Dennis Hope has spent 27 years in solitary confinement in a Texas prison, in a cell that is 9 feet long and 6 feet wide — smaller than a compact parking space.

“It’s three steps to the door and then turn around and three steps back,” Mr. Hope, 53, wrote in a recent letter to his lawyers.

His only human contact is with the guards who strip-search and handcuff him before taking him to another enclosure to exercise, alone. He has had one personal phone call since 1994, when his mother died in 2013. He suffers from depression and paranoia and fears he is going insane.

Last month, Mr. Hope asked the Supreme Court to consider whether such prolonged isolation can violate the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishments. His petition states:

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

I. Dennis Wayne Hope has been in solitary confinement since 1994—for 27 years (and counting). The court below in a 2-1 opinion, over a dissent by Judge Haynes, held that solitary confinement cannot violate the Eighth Amendment, no matter how long it is imposed for, its impact on a prisoner’s mental and physical health, or the rationale for imposing it. The first question presented is:

Whether decades of solitary confinement can, under some circumstances, violate the Eighth Amendment, as at least five circuits have held, or whether solitary confinement can never run afoul of the Eighth Amendment, as the court below and three other circuits have held.

II. Mr. Hope alleges that the regular “reviews” of his isolation are sham proceedings, where officials sign off on his continuing isolation without even bothering to review his file. The court below held— again, 2-1—that those proceedings comply with the Due Process Clause. The second question presented is:

Whether the Due Process Clause requires hearings where prison officials are open to the possibility of a different outcome, as at least seven circuits have held, or whether a hearing that rubber-stamps a prisoner’s placement suffices, as the court below held.

Prison officials in Texas do not seem concerned about Mr. Hope’s lawsuit. Last week, they told the Supreme Court that they waived their right to respond to his petition seeking review in his case, Hope v. Harris, No. 21-1065.

In their appeals court brief, the officials wrote that “Hope has no plausible Eighth Amendment claim.”

“While the conditions of Hope’s confinement may be unpleasant and possibly harsh,” the brief said, “he failed to show the conditions are objectively so serious as to deprive him of the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities.”

Texas is a leader in the use of prolonged solitary confinement. More than 500 prisoners there have served more than 10 years in almost total isolation, and 138 have served more than 20.

Across the nation, according to a 2020 study from the Correctional Leaders Association and the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School, about 7,000 prisoners have spent at least a year in solitary confinement and about 1,500 have been isolated for more than six years. [MORE]