Prisoner's Rights

Question 1

Estelle v. Gamble*

Answer 1

USSC 1976; 8th & 42 USC 1983. If Deliberate Indifference is shown by prison personnel toward a prisoner’s serious illness or injury, then their actions (inactions) constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and violates the 8th Amendment.

Question 2

Vitek v. Jones*

Answer 2

USSC 1980; 14th DP Clause. The involuntary transfer of a prisoner to a mental hospital impinges on liberty interests protected by the 14th amendment’s Due Process clause. Ruling said that even a convicted felon retains the right not to be stigmatized by a mental health commitment without adequate due process. Adequate due process would entail (1) adequate notice, (2) an adversarial hearing before an independent decision maker, (3) a written finding, and (4) legal counsel availability.

Question 3

Baxstrom v. Herold*

Answer 3

USSC 1960; 14th EP Clause. Defined the commitment procedures required to keep a prisoner at the expiration of his criminal sentence in a maximum security psychiatric hospital. The Equal Protection clause dictates that criminals be granted the same procedural protections afforded to civil patients with regard to involuntary commitment. Specifically, in this case, (1) it was ordered that he be granted a jury review of civil commitment, and (2) if he were to be held at a facility maintained by the NY Dept of Corrections, a judge must determine if he would be dangerous to others in a civil mental hospital.

Question 4

Farmer v. Brennan*

Answer 4

USSC 1994; 8th. Defined the mens rea requirement for a prison official to be found liable of deliberate indifference toward a prisoner. In order for a prison official to be found deliberately indifferent, he must know that as the result of his actions, the inmate will be at a substantially increased risk of harm, and he disregards that risk by failing to take reasonable measures to abate it. Proving that a prison official should have known of the danger is insufficient to prove deliberate indifference.