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| High court keeps inmate solitary case alive |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 10/21/2003 |
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The nation's highest court refused Monday to kill a lawsuit brought by two prisoners and an ex-inmate at the Louisiana State Penitentiary who spent decades in solitary confinement. Without comment, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal filed by state officials who said they should be immune from a suit by Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace who claim they have been subjected to cruel and inhuman punishment, in violation of the federal constitution, by their stay in solitary. Both were convicted of killing corrections officer Brent Miller in April 1972 and have spent more than three decades in solitary. Also suing is Robert Wilkerson, who was released from prison in February 2001 after a state judge overturned his conviction for killing another inmate during a prison brawl in 1973. Wilkerson also had been held in solitary prior to his release. The Supreme Court's refusal to hear an appeal from state officials, including Warden Burl Cain and state corrections chief Richard Stalder, likely will clear the way for the suit to be tried, said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana American Civil Liberties Union, which is spearheading the suit. Woodfox and Wallace are seeking to be released from solitary. Along with Wilkerson, who was confined in solitary when the suit was filed, they claim the prison board that reviews solitary confinement is a sham. The two remaining in prison also claim that they are being subjected to solitary confinement because they are politically active. Prison officials have said that Woodfox and Wallace would be endangered if they were returned to the general inmate population. Wilkerson was held in solitary to avoid possible retaliation from other inmates, officials said. U.S. Magistrate Docia Dalby of Baton Rouge, who recommended in March 2002 that the three be allowed to sue, wrote that prisoners may claim solitary confinement is cruel and unusual only in "extraordinary circumstances." However, Dalby said a review of other cases found that three or four years is about the longest any prisoner stays in solitary confinement. |
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