Class Action Solitary Confinement Lawsuit Allowed to Proceed

The federal district court ruled that prisoners had alleged sufficient facts to prove that the extreme isolation prisoners are subjected to in solitary confinement violates the prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. The court also ruled that the conditions in these units, as described by prisoners, were so bad that prisoners could not be transferred to solitary confinement without a hearing, and that Illinois violated prisoners’ constitutional right to due process by holding what the prisoners described as “sham” hearings.