Prisoner Rights

Corrections

Unit Topics

Outline the development and sources of prisoners’ rights

Describe types of inmate lawsuits using access to courts and issues of religion as examples.

Describe how inmate litigation is limited.

Summarize the issues associated with the loss of civil right.

Explain procedures by which civil rights can be restored.

Philosophies on Prisoner Rights

• Rights-Are-Related: Argues that prisoners keep all the rights of an ordinary citizen, except those that are expressly or by necessity taken away from them by law (Comes from 1944 appeals court decision Coffin v. Reichard)

• Rights-Are-Lost: Argues that prisoners are wholly without rights except those expressly conferred by law or necessity

Habeas Corpus and Ex Post Facto

• Writ of Habeas Corpus: Judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court in order to determine the legality of the prisoner’s detention

ex parte Hull (1941): prison authorities cannot restrict an inmate’s right to apply to a federal court for a writ of habeas corpus

• Ex Post Facto law: A law imposing a greater punishment for a crime than was allowed when the crime was committed

Due Process and Equal Protection

• Incorporation: Legal theory arguing that all provisions of the Bill of Rights are made applicable to the states through the due process clause

• Due Process Clause: That section of the Fourteenth Amendment requiring all states to abide by the Bill of Rights when depriving a person of life, liberty, or property

Due Process and Equal Protection

• Equal Protection Clause: That section of the Fourteenth Amendments prohibiting any state from denying equal protection of the law to person within its jurisdiction

• Section 1983 Claim: A claim brought under the authority of U.S. Code Title 42, Section 1983 that civil rights have been violated

What Legal Rights do Inmates Have?

Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment

Thirteenth Amendment: banning of slavery and involuntary servitude

Fourteenth Amendment on the concept of individual rights

The Civil Rights Act

U.S. Code Title 42, Section 1983• Prisoner claims are typically called Section

1983 claims.• Prisoners use for claims ranging from religion,

inadequate health care, staff brutality, inmate-on-inmate assaults.

Important Prisoner’s Rights Cases

Ruffin v. Commonwealth (1871)Holt v. Sarver (1970)Cruz v. Beto (1972)Wolff v. McDonnell (1974)Turner v. Safley (1987)Porter v. Nussle (2002)Wilkinson v. Austin (2005)Beard v. Banks (2006)Brown v. Plata (2011)

Important Prisoner’s Rights Cases

Bounds v Smith (1977): prisons must provide adequate law libraries or adequate legal assistance from persons trained in law

Lewis v. Casey (1996): Bounds did not create a freestanding right to a law library or even legal assistance; for a violation of Bounds to occur, prisoners must show the provided prison library or legal assistance program is hindering their efforts to pursue a legal claim

Inmate lawsuits and Access to Courts

Legitimate Penological Interest: Standard used by courts to determine whether a prison policy was developed in an arbitrary manner or out of concern for prison order and security

Access to Courts is Possibly the most basic right

Access involves two components:Procedures by which inmates get their claims

before the courtHaving the necessary legal knowledge to make

their access effective

Religion Rights

Free exercise presents greater problems in prison environment

Freedom to believe and freedom to act

Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940): first is absolute, but nature of things the second cannot be, conduct becomes subject to regulation for protection of society

Religion Rights

Court understands First Amendment gives all people absolute right to whatever religious beliefs they wish but not necessarily to every action they want to carry out

Legitimate penological interests overrule any actions for practicing of religion

Turner v Safely Standards

Factors to be considered when deciding if a prison regulation that interferes with a prisoner’s constitutional rights is a valid policy:

Does the regulation have a valid, rational connection to a legitimate government interest?

Do inmates have available alternate means to exercise the asserted right?

How would accommodation of the right affect correctional officers, inmates, and prison resources?

Are there ready alternatives to the regulation?

Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA)

• Prison Litigation Reform Act (PRLA): Intended to reduce the volume of prisoner litigation and to improve the merit of filed claims including limiting nongovernmental organizations to legally challenge prison conditions and automatically terminates court orders after two years regardless of compliance

Incarceration and loss of civil rights

• Civil Death: Convicted offenders forfeit all rights and privileges of citizenship, including things such as the right to enter in a contract or the right to sue

• Civil Disabilities: Convicted offenders suffer a partial, rather than an absolute, loss of civil rights because of a criminal conviction

• Invisible Punishments: Sanctions operating mostly beyond public view, yet having very serious, adverse consequences for the individuals affected

Civil Rights Issues

• Collateral consequences: Secondary consequences beyond the actual sentence that was imposed

• Sex offender registration laws: Requires persons convicted of sex offenses to register in a community, even after they have completed their sentence for that conviction

Civil Rights Issues

• Public notification laws: Requires the public be notified of the name and location of certain sex offenders in the community

• Residence restriction laws: Require sex offenders to live in certain areas or restrict them from living in other areas

• Civil disenfranchisement: The loss of the right to vote due, for example, to a felony conviction

Civil Sanctions

• In many jurisdictions persons convicted of felonies lose some of their civil rights.• Not legally full citizens even after finishing

their sentence• State hinders full reintegration and

contributes to recidivism

Certificate of Rehabilitation

• Certificate of Rehabilitation: Generic term for an official recognition that a criminal offender has shown reliability and good character over time and deserves to regain lost civil rights