The Constitution of the War on Drugs, by David Pozen, Oxford University Press, 304 pages, $27.95 When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion mocked “attempts to justify abortion” by asserting “a broader right to autonomy.” After all, he wrote in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that concept […]
Homeless encampment under an overpass in Oakland, California. (Blackkango | Dreamstime.com)  Today, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, a case which raises the issue of whether a law that criminalizes camping on public property by homeless people who have nowhere else to qualifies as “cruel and unusual punishment” […]
Several inmates in an Oklahoma prison say they were locked in filthy shower stalls, some as small as 2 square feet, for days on end. In a lawsuit filed last week, the inmates claim that this treatment caused “severe physical and emotional suffering,” and was an obvious violation of their Eighth Amendment rights. According to […]
Is it cruel and unusual to subject an incarcerated person to sleep deprivation for years? That’s a question it has taken federal courts more than a decade to answer. On March 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reinstated Texas inmate Michael Garrett’s 11-year-long-and-still-running lawsuit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, […]