Amdt8.4.7 Conditions of Confinement

Eighth Amendment:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

The Supreme Court stated in Rhodes v. Chapman, “It is unquestioned that '[c]onfinement in a prison . . . is a form of punishment subject to scrutiny under the Eighth Amendment standards.’” 1 The Court explained that “[c]onditions [in prison] must not involve the wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain, nor may they be grossly disproportionate to the severity of the crime warranting imprisonment.” According to the Rhodes Court, prison conditions, “alone or in combination, may deprive inmates of the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities” and thus violate the Eighth Amendment. However “conditions that cannot be said to be cruel and unusual under contemporary standards are not unconstitutional. To the extent that such conditions are restrictive and even harsh, they are part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses against society.” 2 These general principles apply both to the treatment of individuals3 and to the creation or maintenance of prison conditions that are inhumane to inmates generally.4

Ordinarily, the question of whether conditions of confinement are cruel and unusual involves both a subjective and an objective inquiry.5 When conditions of confinement are not formally meted out as punishment by the statute or sentencing judge, such conditions cannot qualify as “cruel and unusual punishment” unless the prison officials who impose them possess a culpable, “wanton” state of mind.6 In the context of general prison conditions, this culpable state of mind is “deliberate indifference” ;7 in the context of emergency actions, such as actions required to suppress a disturbance by inmates, only a malicious and sadistic state of mind suffices to violate the Eighth Amendment.8 When excessive force is alleged, the objective standard varies depending upon whether that force was applied in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or whether it was applied maliciously and sadistically to cause harm. In the good-faith context, there must be proof of significant injury. When, however, prison officials “maliciously and sadistically use force to cause harm, contemporary standards of decency are always violated,” and there is no need to prove that “significant injury” resulted.9

Beginning in 1970, federal courts found prisons or entire prison systems to violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause and imposed broad remedial orders to improve prison conditions and ameliorate prison life in more than two dozen states.10 The Supreme Court upheld challenged portions of one of those decisions in Hutto v. Finney.11 The issues before the Supreme Court in Hutto were limited to the appropriateness of the remedy; however, the Court expressed approval of the district court’s Eighth Amendment analysis.12 By contrast, in two subsequent cases, the Court rejected Eighth Amendment challenges to the practice of housing two inmates in the same cell.13 Although the Court in each case reaffirmed the duty of the federal courts to protect prisoners’ constitutional rights, it cautioned the courts to proceed with deference to the decisions of state legislatures and prison administrators.14 Thus, concerns of federalism and judicial restraint apparently motivated the Court to limit federal remedies where the prevailing circumstances, given the resources states choose to devote to them, “cannot be said to be cruel and unusual under contemporary standards.” 15 Subsequent cases indicate that such concerns are relevant to Eighth Amendment analysis but are not dispositive.16

Congress initially authorized litigation over prison conditions in 1980 in the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act,17 but then in 1996 added restrictions through the Prison Litigation Reform Act.18

104-134
, title VIII, 110 Stat. 1321-66–1321-77. The Court upheld the latter law’s provision for an automatic stay of prospective relief upon the filing of a motion to modify or terminate that relief, ruling that the automatic stay provision did not violate separation of powers principles.19

Footnotes
1
Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 345 (1981) (quoting Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 685 (1978)). back
2
452 U.S. at 347. See also Overton v. Bazzetta, 539 U.S. 126, 137 (2003) (rejecting a challenge to a two-year withdrawal of visitation as punishment for prisoners who commit multiple substance abuse violations, characterizing the practice as “not a dramatic departure from accepted standards for conditions of confinement,” but indicating that a permanent ban “would present different considerations” ). back
3
E.g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976) (deliberate medical neglect of a prisoner violates Eighth Amendment); Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25 (1993) (prisoner who alleged exposure to secondhand “environmental” tobacco smoke stated a cause of action under the Eighth Amendment); Taylor v. Riojas, No. 19-1261, slip op. at 1 (U.S. Nov. 2, 2020) (per curiam) (four days’ confinement in a cell “covered, nearly floor to ceiling, in massive amounts of feces” followed by two days in a “frigidly cold cell” where prisoner “was left to sleep naked in sewage” violated the Eighth Amendment) (internal quotes omitted). In Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89 (2007) (per curiam), the Court overturned a lower court’s dismissal, on procedural grounds, of a prisoner’s claim of having been denied medical treatment, with life-threatening consequences. back
4
E.g., Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678 (1978). back
5
E.g., Rhodes, 452 U.S.at 346–47. back
6
Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294 (1991). back
7
501 U.S. at 303. Deliberate indifference in this context means something more than disregarding an unjustifiably high risk of harm that should have been known, as might apply in the civil context. Rather, it requires the court to find that the responsible person acted in reckless disregard of a risk of which he or she was aware, as would generally be required for a criminal charge of recklessness. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994). In upholding capital punishment by a three-drug lethal injection protocol, despite the risk that the protocol will not be properly followed and consequently result in severe pain, a Court plurality found that, although “subjecting individuals to a risk of future harm—not simply actually inflicting pain—can qualify as cruel and unusual punishment . . . , the conditions presenting the risk must be 'sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering,’ and give rise to ‘sufficiently imminent dangers.’ . . . [T]o prevail on such a claim there must be a ‘substantial risk of serious harm,’ an ‘objectively intolerable risk of harm’ that prevents prison officials from pleading that they were ‘subjectively blameless for purposes of the Eighth Amendment.’” Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, 48–50 (2008) (emphasis added by the Court). This case is also discussed under Amdt8.4.9.10 Execution Methods. back
8
Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312 (1986) (arguably excessive force in suppressing prison uprising did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment). back
9
Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 9 (1992) (beating of a shackled prisoner resulted in bruises, swelling, loosened teeth, and a cracked dental plate). Accord Wilkins v. Gaddy, 559 U.S. 34 (2010) (per curiam). back
10
Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 353–54 n.1 (1981) (Brennan, J., concurring) (collecting cases). See Note, Complex Enforcement: Unconstitutional Prison Conditions, 94 Harv. L. Rev. 626 (1981). back
11
437 U.S. 678 (1978). back
12
Id. at 685–86 ( “Read in its entirety, the District Court’s opinion makes it abundantly clear that the length of isolation sentences was not considered in a vacuum. In the court’s words, punitive isolation ‘is not necessarily unconstitutional, but it may be, depending on the duration of the confinement and the conditions thereof.’” ) (quoting Finney v. Hutto, 410 F. Supp. 251, 275 (E.D. Ark. 1976)). back
13
Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 530–36 (1979); Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 347–50 (1981). back
14
Bell, 441 U.S. at 562 ( “The deplorable conditions and Draconian restrictions of some of our Nation’s prisons are too well known to require recounting here, and the federal courts rightly have condemned these sordid aspects of our prison systems. But many of these same courts have, in the name of the Constitution, become increasingly enmeshed in the minutiae of prison operations. . . . This does not mean that constitutional rights are not to be scrupulously observed. It does mean, however, that the inquiry of federal courts into prison management must be limited to the issue of whether a particular system violates any prohibition of the Constitution or, in the case of a federal prison, a statute.” ); see also Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 351–52. back
15
Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 351–52; See also Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, 502 U.S. 367 (1991) (allowing modification, based on a significant change in law or facts, of a 1979 consent decree that had ordered construction of a new jail with single-occupancy cells; modification was to depend upon whether the upsurge in jail population was anticipated when the decree was entered, and whether the decree was premised on the mistaken belief that single-celling is constitutionally mandated). back
16
E.g., Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 35–37 (1993) (Holding that “[w]e cannot rule at this juncture that it will be impossible . . . to prove an Eighth Amendment violation based on exposure to ETS [environmental tobacco smoke],” and inquiry into whether prison authorities were deliberately indifferent to dangers posed by exposure to ETS “would be an appropriate vehicle to consider arguments regarding the realities of prison administration.” ). back
17
Pub. L. No. 96-247, 94 Stat. 349, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1997 et seq. back
18
Pub. L. No.
104-134
, title VIII, 110 Stat. 1321-66–1321-77. back
19
Miller v. French, 530 U.S. 327 (2000). See also Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516 (2002) (applying the Act’s requirement that prisoners exhaust administrative remedies). back