In a case involving Indiana’s forfeiture of a Land Rover used to move drugs, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether the Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive fines applies to state governments.
Read moreA man with mental problems who spent nearly his entire 13 months in solitary confinement filed a federal class action against Chelan County, Washington, and top officials, claiming their treatment of troubled inmates violates the Eight Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
Read moreThe Utah Department of Corrections and Daggett County inflict “unbelievably inhumane conduct” upon prisoners at Daggett County Jail, including stun guns, choking and mauling by dogs, former inmates claim in federal court.
Read moreQuoting 19th century French literary criticism, Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke out Monday after the Supreme Court rejected appeals by two men on death row in Florida.
Read moreJustice Sonia Sotomayor flagged “serious constitutional concerns” Monday with a Ohio law that appears to block the courts from evaluating life sentences that offer no possibility of parole.
Read moreUtah State Prison officials did not violate the constitutional rights of prisoners by dropping tear gas that vented into the cellblock, a 10th Circuit panel ruled Friday.
Read moreA federal judge ruled Thursday that Houston can start enforcing a law that bans camping in public, which critics say criminalizes homelessness, finding that it applies equally to anyone sleeping in a tent on the street.
Read moreThree liberal justices dissented Monday from the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of a challenge to Florida’s death-sentencing procedures, saying the high court should have decided whether jurors being told their verdict was merely advisory diminished their sense of responsibility.
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A Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday revived claims brought by a former Hawaii inmate who says she was psychologically traumatized by forced sexual-shame therapy at a Hawaii correctional facility.
Read moreA new report finds that most, if not all, of the 26 Ohio prisoners scheduled to be executed over the next three years have significant impairments that limit their legal culpability and may preclude them from execution under the Eighth Amendment.
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ACLU attorneys faced a tough fight Thursday in asking the state judge who dismissed its case challenging California’s execution procedures to reconsider the tentative ruling she issued in March.
Read moreTennessee can execute people with pentobarbital, the state supreme court ruled Tuesday, finding that the protocol is not cruel or unusual punishment.
Read moreThe Supreme Court seemed prepared Tuesday to overturn a Texas ruling that allows some people with intellectual disabilities to face the death penalty.
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