NCJ Number
130551
Journal
National Prison Project Journal Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Dated: (Summer 1990) Pages: 3-5
Date Published
1990
Length
3 pages
Annotation
The 1986 Supreme Court decision in Whitley v. Albers has given several courts an opening to erode prisoners' eighth amendment rights prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
Abstract
The case was brought by a prisoner shot by a guard in the course of quelling a prison disturbance. The Supreme Court ruled that, under circumstances of a prison riot, eighth amendment rights are violated only if prison authorities use force "maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm." Although the Court specifically did not extend the "malicious and sadistic" standard to all eighth amendment claims, lower courts hostile to prisoners' rights have expanded Whitley beyond its original circumstances. The Fourth Circuit, for examples, has written that the Whitley standard applies to any claim of excessive force to subdue a prisoner or to prevent the incidence of any breach of prison discipline. There are even movements to extend the standard to cases involving ongoing conditions of confinement. The National Prison Project has filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in one such case, in an effort to persuade the Supreme Court to reverse this trend, that could eventually make it impossible for prisoners to successfully challenge their imprisonment conditions. 36 references