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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Wardrobe Change on Deck for Indiana Inmate

(CN) - An Indiana prisoner failed to prove that a uniform switch from shirts and pants to jumpsuits constituted "cruel and unusual punishment."

James Daher sought a temporary restraining order to stop the Miami Correctional Facility from switching to the jumpsuits, which Daher complained were too thin and prone to tearing.

"Plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm, if defendants are allowed to force plaintiff to wear what are essentially pajamas, summer-weight pajamas at that, in the dead of winter," Daher complained, citing the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

A circuit court judge from Miami, Ind., dismissed the lawsuit, and the state Court of Appeals agreed that Daher's claim did not cut pass constitutional muster.

"Without meaning to be flip, we presume that the facility in which he is housed is heated in the winter and that he will be provided with appropriate outer wear in the event he must go outside in the cold," Judge Ezra Friedlander wrote for the court. "In short, his complaint addresses matters of comfort that do not rise to the level of wanton deprivation or undue suffering."

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