Discuss a progression away from the hands off doctrine and the establishment of prisoner key rights. Be sure to include relevant cases.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

As part of a growing trend toward an overall greater respect for individual rights in the mid-20th century, as African Americans, women, gays and lesbians, and other disadvantaged groups strongly agitated for them, the courts began to enter into the area of prisoners’ rights. The major issue in prisoner litigation has been the conditions of confinement, but the first significant case was Ex parte Hull (1941), which dealt with the denial by prison officials of a Michigan inmate’s petition for an appeal of the legality of his confinement. Although Hull’s petition was denied due to his commission of a statutory sexual offense and violation of his parole, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that inmates had the right to unrestricted access to federal courts to challenge the legality of their confinement. This ruling was the beginning of the end of the hands-off doctrine. Two cases that also signaled the end of the hands-off period: Jones v. Cunningham (1963) and Cooper v. Pate (1964). In Jones, the Supreme Court went further than it did in Hull and ruled that prisoners could use a writ of habeas corpus to challenge the conditions of their confinement as well as the legality of their confinement. This went beyond the original meaning of habeas corpus, which was only meant to address the preconviction issue of the legality of a petitioner’s detainment. In Cooper, the Court went even further and ruled that state prison inmates could sue state officials in federal courts under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, which was initially enacted to protect Southern blacks from state officials. This act is now codified and known as 42 USC § 1983, or simply as section 1983 suits, and any deprivation of rights grievances filed under it is called a civil rights claim. What was a mere trickle of habeas petitions before Pate quickly became a flood that threatened to drown the federal courts with grievances ranging from the petty to the deadly serious. The most serious petition led to a federal appeals judge declaring the entire prison system of Arkansas unconstitutional and a “dark and evil world” when he placed it under federal supervision. This case gave birth to what has come to be known as a “conditions of confinement lawsuit.” From then on, the federal courts became very much involved in the monitoring and operation of entire prison systems. The vast majority of habeas corpus grievances filed today are about the conditions of confinement, not the legality of an inmate’s confinement. Inmates filing a petition challenging their confinement face an uphill battle because the state’s defense against such a claim is based on inmates’ convictions, which is the obvious legal basis for their confinement.