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| High Court to Rule on Prisoner Case |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 01/14/2002 |
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The Supreme Court will decide if a former Alabama prisoner may sue officers for shackling him to a metal pole known as the 'hitching post.'' Larry Hope claims that the hitching post is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment and that prison officers violated his rights. He lost in lower federal courts that ruled that the prison officers were protected from his lawsuit. Hope, who is now out of prison, asked the high court to give him the chance to go to court and win money damages for his treatment. 'Certainly this is a case in which the rights violated are so basic and obvious that the petitioner should be entitled to ask a jury for compensation,'' Hope's appeal said. Law enforcement officials generally enjoy what is called qualified immunity from lawsuits, unless their conduct violates the Constitution or established law. At issue is how officers would know that their conduct was illegal or unconstitutional, and whether precedents arising from other court cases gave them sufficient information. Hope wants the court to find that previous cases in which the justices banned use of Draconian punishment devices apply to the hitching post as well. Hitching posts are chest-high metal bars with rings attached. They were used periodically in Alabama prisons for years but came into widespread use in 1995 as part of a get-tough approach to criminals championed by former Gov. Fob James. James also instituted chain gangs, and the poles were used as punishment for inmates who refused or disrupted the forced work. Hope claims he is among hundreds of Alabama prisoners shackled to the outdoor pole for extended periods without food, water or bathroom breaks. He was punished that way twice in 1995 at Limestone Correctional Facility, Hope claims. During the second punishment, in June 1995, Hope was photographed by national news media, he said. That second session lasted seven hours, Hope claimed, and included taunting by officers who first promised to bring him water but then gave the water to dogs instead. In 1998, a federal judge found in a separate case that hitching posts were unconstitutional as they were used in Alabama but told the state it could try to devise a more humane application of the punishment. That holding was not appealed. The state stopped using hitching posts and has not resumed. The Alabama attorney general's office urged the Supreme Court to stay out of the case. Nothing about the hitching post was obviously illegal, and courts had provided no clear direction on the question, so the officers were within their rights to use the device, the state argued. The case is Hope v. Pelzer, 01-309. |
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