Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision involving the constitutionality of two Missouri prison regulations. One of the prisoners' claims related to the fundamental right to marry, and the other related to freedom of speech. The court held that a regulation preventing inmates from marrying without permission violated their constitutional right to marry because it was not logically related to a legitimate penological concern, but a prohibition on inmate-to-inmate correspondence was justified by prison security needs.
The Angola Three are three African-American former prison inmates who were held for decades in solitary confinement while imprisoned at Louisiana State Penitentiary. The latter two were indicted in April 1972 for the killing of a prison corrections officer; they were convicted in January 1974. Wallace and Woodfox served more than 40 years each in solitary, the "longest period of solitary confinement in American prison history".
Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930 (2007), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, ruling that criminal defendants sentenced to death may not be executed if they do not understand the reason for their imminent execution, and that once the state has set an execution date death-row inmates may litigate their competency to be executed in habeas corpus proceedings. This decision reaffirmed the Court's prior holdings in Ford v. Wainwright, and Stewart v. Martinez-Villareal.
The James V. Allred Unit is a prison for males located on Farm to Market Road 369 in Wichita Falls, Texas, United States, 4 miles (6.4 km) northwest of downtown Wichita Falls. The prison is near Iowa Park. The prison, with about 320 acres (130 ha) of land, is a part of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Region V.
Modern pagans are a religious minority in every country where they exist and have been subject to religious discrimination and/or religious persecution. The largest modern pagans communities are in North America and the United Kingdom, and the issue of discrimination receives most attention in those locations, but there are also reports from other countries.
Beard v. Banks, 548 U.S. 521 (2006), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court in which the petitioner, Ronald Banks, challenged the constitutionality of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections policy of denying access to written material such as newspapers and magazines, to violent inmates, on the grounds that the policy was a violation of his First Amendment rights, including freedom of speech.
Cooper v. Pate, 378 U.S. 546 (1964), was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court ruled for the first time that state prison inmates have the standing to sue in federal court to address their grievances under the Civil Rights Act of 1871. This case followed Jones v. Cunningham (1963) allowing prison inmates to employ a writ of habeas corpus to challenge the legality of their sentencing and the conditions of their imprisonment.
Frances Jalet-Cruz was an American lawyer who represented Texas inmates in a number of lawsuits against the Texas Department of Corrections. She was one of the central figures in the Texas prison reform movement during the late 1960s and 1970s that led to broad changes in the Texas prison system in the 1980s.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that plaintiffs must present a "plausible" cause of action. Alongside Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, Iqbal raised the threshold which plaintiffs needed to meet. Further, the Court held that government officials are not liable for the actions of their subordinates without evidence that they ordered the allegedly discriminatory activity. At issue was whether current and former federal officials, including FBI Director Robert Mueller and former United States Attorney General John Ashcroft, were entitled to qualified immunity against an allegation that they knew of or condoned racial and religious discrimination against Muslim men detained after the September 11 attacks. The decision also "transformed civil litigation in the federal courts" by making it much easier for courts to dismiss individuals' suits.
United States v. Georgia, 546 U.S. 151 (2006), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided that the protection of Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), passed by the U.S. Congress, extends to persons held in a state prison and protects prison inmates from discrimination on the basis of disability by prison personnel. Specifically, the court held that Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12165., is a proper use of Congressional power under the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 5, making it applicable to prison system officials.
Ruiz v. Estelle, 503 F. Supp. 1265, filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, eventually became the most far-reaching lawsuit on the conditions of prison incarceration in American history.
The John M. Wynne Unit (WY) is a men's prison of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, located in northern Huntsville, Texas, at the intersection of Farm to Market Road 2821 West and Texas State Highway 75 North. The Windham School District has its headquarters in the unit. Wynne, the second oldest prison in Texas, was named after John Magruder Wynne, who served as a prison employee and later as a board member of the prison system from 1878 to 1881. The unit, on a 1,412 acres (571 ha) plot of land, is co-located with the Holliday Unit.
George John Beto was a director of the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC), a criminal justice expert in penology, a professor, and a Lutheran minister. He was previously the president of Concordia Lutheran College in Austin and Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, Illinois.
Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817 (1977), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court tested the basic constitutional right of prison inmates’ access to legal documents prior to court. Prison authorities would consequently be required to provide legal assistance or counsel to inmates, whether it be through a trained legal professional or access to a legal library. Multiple prisoners alleged that they were denied access to the courts due to lack of an adequate legal library and assistance with court related documents.
The 2013 California prisoner hunger strike started on July 8, 2013, involving over 29,000 inmates in protest of the state's use of solitary confinement practices and ended on September 5, 2013. The hunger strike was organized by inmates in long term solitary in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison in protest of inmates housed there that were in solitary confinement indefinitely for having ties to gangs. Another hunger strike that added to the movement started the week before in High Desert State Prison. The focus of the High Desert State Prison hunger strike was to demand cleaner facilities, better food and better access to the library.
Holt v. Hobbs, 574 U.S. 352 (2015), was an American legal case in which the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that an Arkansas prison policy which prohibited a Muslim prisoner from growing a short beard in accordance with his religious beliefs violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).
Kalief Browder was an African American youth from The Bronx, New York, who was held at the Rikers Island jail complex, without trial, between 2010 and 2013 for allegedly stealing a backpack containing valuables. During his imprisonment, Browder was kept in solitary confinement for 800 days.
Thomas Bartlett Whitaker is an American man convicted under the Texas law of parties of murdering two family members as a 23-year-old. Whitaker was convicted on December 10, 2003, for the murders of his mother and 19-year-old brother; he was sentenced to death in March 2007. He spent years on death row at the Polunsky Unit near Livingston, Texas, before the commutation of his sentence.
Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that prisoners retained some due process rights when incarcerated. In particular, the Court ruled that due process required that prison disciplinary decisions to revoke good-time credits must be accompanied by notification of the inmate, administrative hearings, the chance to call witnesses and present evidence, and a written statement detailing the nature of the offense committed and the evidence for said offense.
Dunn v. Ray, 586 U.S. ___ (2019), was a February 2019 United States Supreme Court case related to religious freedom. The case attracted media attention in early February 2019.
