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For our next trick, watch the Eighth Amendment disappear before your very eyes!
Hat tip, Above The Law
Above The Law Morning Docket: 11.14.23
* Suing the bar exam doesn’t work no matter how broken it is. [ABA Journal]
* Look what the guilty plea fairy just coughed up in the Trump case! [Guardian]
* For our next trick, watch the Eighth Amendment disappear before your very eyes! [Reuters]
{snip}
* Suing the bar exam doesn’t work no matter how broken it is. [ABA Journal]
* Look what the guilty plea fairy just coughed up in the Trump case! [Guardian]
* For our next trick, watch the Eighth Amendment disappear before your very eyes! [Reuters]
{snip}
US Supreme Court liberals dissent in 'unusually severe' solitary confinement case
By John Kruzel and Andrew Chung
November 13, 20232:11 PM EST Updated 21 hours ago
WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court's three liberal justices on Monday sharply objected to the court's refusal to hear an appeal by a former Illinois inmate who was kept in solitary confinement in a state prison and virtually deprived of any exercise for about three years.
The court takes up appeals when at least four of its nine justices agree to hear a case. None of the six conservative justices joined with the liberal justices to provide the fourth vote needed to hear former inmate Michael Johnson's appeal of a lower court's ruling rejecting his 2016 civil rights lawsuit accusing prison officials of violating the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment bar on cruel and unusual punishment.
Johnson was incarcerated after being convicted of home invasion and subsequently was convicted while in prison of two instances of aggravated battery against a peace officer.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in an eight-page dissent joined by fellow liberals Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said the lower court applied the wrong legal test to determine whether Johnson's treatment violated the Eighth Amendment. {snip} Illinois Democratic Attorney General Kwame Raoul had urged the justices to reject the appeal.
{snip}
Reporting by John Kruzel in Washington and Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham
By John Kruzel and Andrew Chung
November 13, 20232:11 PM EST Updated 21 hours ago
WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court's three liberal justices on Monday sharply objected to the court's refusal to hear an appeal by a former Illinois inmate who was kept in solitary confinement in a state prison and virtually deprived of any exercise for about three years.
The court takes up appeals when at least four of its nine justices agree to hear a case. None of the six conservative justices joined with the liberal justices to provide the fourth vote needed to hear former inmate Michael Johnson's appeal of a lower court's ruling rejecting his 2016 civil rights lawsuit accusing prison officials of violating the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment bar on cruel and unusual punishment.
Johnson was incarcerated after being convicted of home invasion and subsequently was convicted while in prison of two instances of aggravated battery against a peace officer.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in an eight-page dissent joined by fellow liberals Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said the lower court applied the wrong legal test to determine whether Johnson's treatment violated the Eighth Amendment. {snip} Illinois Democratic Attorney General Kwame Raoul had urged the justices to reject the appeal.
{snip}
Reporting by John Kruzel in Washington and Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham