1. Chapter 11
The Legal World:
Prisoners’ Rights
McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2013 McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved.

2. The Hands-Off Doctrine
 An historical policy of American courts not
to intervene in prison management; Courts
tended to follow the doctrine until the late
1960s
 Based on two rationales:
 Separation of powers
 Judges should leave correctional
administration to correctional experts
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3. The Court And
The Hands-Off Doctrine
 Ex Parte Hull (1941) – No state or its officers
may interfere with a prisoner’s right to apply to a
federal court for a writ of habeas corpus.
 Coffin v. Reichard (1944) – Habeas corpus
proceedings are extended to consideration of
the conditions of confinement.
 Cooper v. Pate (1964) – Prisoners may sue a
warden or other correctional official under Title
42 of the U.S. Code Sec. 1983, based on the
protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1871.
 Holt v. Sarver (1970) – The entire Arkansas
prison system was declared unconstitutional.
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4. Prisoners’ Rights
 Constitutional guarantees of free speech,
religious practice, due process, and other
private and personal rights as well as
constitutional protections against cruel and
unusual punishments made applicable to
prison inmates by the federal courts.
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5. Prisoners’ Rights – Continued
Prisoner’s rights derive from:
 Constitutional Rights – personal and due process
rights guaranteed to individuals by the
Constitution and its Amendments
 Federal Statutes – laws passed by Congress
 State Constitutions
 State Statutes
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6. Institutional Needs
 Interests of prison administration
recognized by the courts as justifying
some restrictions on the constitutional
rights of prisoners
 Those interests are
 maintenance of institutional order
 maintenance of institutional security
 safety of prison inmates and staff
 rehabilitation of inmates
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7. Five Ways To Challenge
Prison Conditions
 State habeas corpus action
 Federal habeas corpus action (after state
remedies have been exhausted)
 State tort lawsuit
 Federal civil rights lawsuit
 Compensatory or punitive damages
 Petition for injunctive relief
 The criminal court system
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8. Key Terms
 Writ of habeas corpus – (latin “You have the
body”) An order that directs the person detaining
a prisoner to bring him or her before a judge,
who will determine the lawfulness of the
imprisonment
 Tort - A civil wrong, a wrongful act, or a
wrongful breach of duty, other than a breach of
contract, whether intentional or accidental, from
which injury to another occurs
 Injunction - A judicial order to do or refrain
from doing a particular act
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9. Types of Damages
 Nominal damages - Small amounts of money a
court may award when inmates have sustained no
actual damages, but there is clear evidence that
their rights have been violated
 Compensatory damages - Money a court may
award as payment for actual losses suffered by a
plaintiff, including out-of-pocket expenses incurred
in filing the suit, other forms of monetary or material
loss, pain, suffering, and mental anguish
 Punitive damages - Money a court may award to
punish a wrongdoer when a wrongful act was
intentional and malicious or was done with reckless
disregard for the right of the victim
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10. The Criminal Court System
 Jurisdiction - The power, right, or authority
of a court to interpret and apply the law
 Dual court system – the federal and state
court systems coexist
 Trial courts of the federal system are
called District Courts
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11. Inmate Grievance Procedures
 Grievance procedures are formal institutional
processes for hearing inmate complaints
 Following the deadly riot in New York’s Attica
Prison in 1977, the U.S. Comptroller General
encouraged the creation of grievance
mechanisms
 The U.S. Supreme Court made formal
procedures mandatory in Jones v. North
Carolina Prisoners’ Labor Union (1977)
 Only about 1 in 12 is successful
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12. Reasons For Establishing
Grievance Procedures
 Promote justice and fairness
 Provide inmates a means to voice their
concerns
 Assist in identifying institutional problems
 Reduce the number of lawsuits filed by
inmates
 Reduce violence
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13. First Amendment Issues
 Pell v. Pecunier (1974) articulated the concept of
legitimate penological objectives and
established a balancing test to weigh the rights
claimed by inmates against the legitimate needs
of prisons
 Legitimate penological objectives : the
realistic concerns that correctional officers and
administrators have for the integrity and security
of the correctional institution and the safety of
staff and inmates
 Balancing test: weighing the rights claimed by
inmates against the legitimate needs of prisons
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14. Freedom Of Speech And
Expression
 Cruz v. Beto (1972) – all visits can be banned if
they threaten security; prison visits are not an
absolute right
 Procurnier v. Martinez (1974) – censoring inmate
mail is acceptable only when necessary to
protect legitimate government interests
 McNamara v. Moody (1979) – prison officials
may not prevent inmates from writing vulgar
letters or those that make disparaging remarks
about the prison staff
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15. Freedom Of Speech And
Expression - Continued
 Peppering v. Crist (1981) – prison officials may
not ban mailed nude pictures of inmates’ wives
or girlfriends
 Turner v. Safely (1987) – upheld a Missouri ban
on correspondence among inmates
 Jones v. N.C. Prisoner’s Labor Union (1977) –
upheld regulations that prohibited prisoners from
soliciting other inmates to join the union and
barred union meetings and bulk mailing
concerning the union from outside sources
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16. Freedom Of Religion
 Fulwood v. Clemmer (1962) – the Black Muslim
faith must be recognized as a religion
 Cruz v. Beto (1972) – inmates have to be given a
reasonable opportunity to pursue their religions
 Kahane v. Carlson (1974) – a Jewish inmate has
the right to a kosher diet
 Udey v. Kastner (1986) – If the requested special
diet is too costly, the prison may deny the request
 O’Lone v. Estate of Shabazz (1987) – a prison
does not have to alter a prisoner’s work schedule
so the inmate can attend religious services
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17. Fourth Amendment Issues
 United States v. Hitchcock (1972): An inmate
can have no reasonable expectation of privacy
in his prison cell, since official surveillance is
necessary to meet legitimate security needs of
the prison
 Reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court case of
Hudson v. Palmer (1984)
 Block v. Rutherford (1984) – Prisoners do not
have the right to be present during searches of
their cells
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18. Eighth Amendment Issues
 Cruel and Unusual Punishment – a penalty
that is grossly disproportionate to the offense or
that violates today’s broad and idealistic
concepts of dignity, civilized standards,
humanity, and decency (Estelle v. Gamble
(1976), and Hutto v. Finney (1978))
 In the area of capital punishment, cruel and
unusual punishments are those involving torture,
a lingering death, or unnecessary pain
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19. Medical Care
 Estelle v. Gamble – Prison officials have a duty
to provide inmates with medical care
 Prison officials can not lawfully demonstrate
deliberate indifference to the medical needs of
prisoners
 Deliberate indifference – Intentional and
willful indifference; within the field of correctional
practice, the term refers to calculated inattention
to unconstitutional conditions of confinement
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20. Prison Conditions
 In Pugh v. Locke (1976) and Battle v. Anderson
(1977), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a
totality of conditions standard must be used in
evaluating whether prison conditions are cruel
and unusual
 Hutto v. Finney (1978) – Confinement in
Arkansas’ solitary confinement cells in excess of
30 days is cruel and unusual punishment
 Rhodes v. Chapman (1981) – Double celling of
inmates is not unconstitutional
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21. Fourteenth Amendment
 Due Process - A right guaranteed by the Fifth,
Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S.
Constitution and generally understood, in legal
contexts, to mean the expected course of legal
proceedings according to the rules and forms
established for the protection of persons’ rights
 Turner v. Safeley (1987) – “… prison walls do
not form a barrier separating prison inmates
from the protections of the Constitution”
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22. Fourteenth Amendment -Continued
 Johnson v. Avery (1968) – inmates have a right
to consult with “jailhouse lawyers” (other inmates
knowledgeable in the law) when trained legal
advisors are not available
 Wolff v. McDonnell (1974) – imposed minimal
due process requirements on prison disciplinary
proceedings that could lead to solitary
confinement or reduction of good-time credits
 Baxter v. Palmigiano (1976) – inmates do not
have a right to counsel at a prison disciplinary
hearing
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23. Fourteenth Amendment -Continued
 Meacham v. Fano (1976) – inmates have no due
process protections before being transferred
from one prison to another
 Bounds v. Smith (1977) – the fundamental right
of access to the courts requires prison
administrators to provide prisoners with
adequate law libraries and adequate assistance
from persons trained in the law
 West v. Atkins (1988) – private citizens
contracted to do work for prisons can be sued
for civil rights violations
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24. End of the Prisoner Rights Era
 By the late 1980s, the prisoner rights era was
drawing to a close
 Following a change in the Supreme Court
composition, the Court became less sympathetic
to prisoners’ civil rights
 Daniels v. Williams helped establish the notion
that due process requirements were intended to
prevent abuses of power by correctional
officials, not to protect against mere
carelessness
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25. Brown v. Plata
 In 2011; in the case of Brown v. Plata,
ordered the state of California to
aggressively reduce its prison population
by releasing as many as 58,000 inmates
over the next two years.
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26. Frivolous Lawsuits
 Lawsuits with no foundation in fact, generally
brought for publicity, political, or other reasons
not related to law
 Wilson v. Seiter (1991) – overcrowding,
excessive noise, insufficient locker space, and
similar conditions do not violate the Constitution
so long as the intent of the prison officials is not
malicious
 The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act
of 1980 requires state inmates to exhaust all
state remedies before filing a writ of habeas
corpus in federal court
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27. Female Inmates and the Courts
 Female inmates frequently had to go to court
simply to gain rights that male inmates already
had
 Barefield v. Leach (1974) demonstrated that the
opportunities and programs for female inmates
were clearly inferior to those for male inmates
 Strip searches of female misdemeanor offenders
awaiting bond in a Chicago lockup were
unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment
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