Chapter 3
Solitary Confinement
This Chapter centers on long-term isolation, a topic of increasing interest and controversy in the past decade. While further elaborating the legal principles described in the previous Chapter, this Chapter also includes historical and international materials and excerpts, presenting the views of correctional administrators, correctional unions, and mental health professionals.
Featured Opinions
- Davis v. Ayala, 576 U.S. ___, 135 S.Ct. 2187 (2015)
- In re Medley, 134 U.S. 160 (1890)
- Porter v. Clarke, 923 F.3d 348 (4th Cir. 2019), as amended
Featured, Cited, and Supplemental Litigation Documents
- Ashker v. Brown, No. 4:09–cv–05796 (N.D. Cal.)
- Litigation summary and documents
- CCR resource page
- Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial (Dec. 9. 2009)
- Second Amended Complaint (Sept. 10, 2012)
- Expert Report of Dr. Dachner Keltner, PhD., on touch (Mar. 11, 2015)
- Expert Report of Matthew D. Lieberman, on social interaction (Mar. 11, 2015)
- Expert Report of Juan E. Méndez, on solitary confinement in international law (Mar. 6, 2015)
- Expert Report of Andrew Coyle, PhD., on international and professional standards for solitary confinement (Mar. 12, 2015)
- Settlement Agreement (Sept. 1, 2015)
- Cookhorne v. Fischer, 2012–1791 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. settled Feb. 10, 2016)
- Disability Advocates, Inc. v. N.Y. State Office of Mental Health, No. 02-cv-4002 (S.D.N.Y.)
- Litigation summary and documents
- Private Settlement Agreement (Apr. 27, 2007)
- Disability Law Center v. Mass. Dept. of Correction, 07-cv-10463 (D. Mass.)
- Litigation summary and documents
- Settlement Agreement (Dec. 12, 2011)
- H.C. v. Bradshaw, 9:18–cv–80810 (S.D. Fla.)
- Litigation summary and documents
- Settlement Agreement (Nov. 15, 2018)
- Madrid v. Gomez, No. 90–cv–3094 (N.D. Cal.)
- Litigation summary and documents
- Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order, 889 F. Supp. 1146 (1995)
- Peoples v. Fischer, No. 11–cv–2964 (S.D.N.Y.)
- Litigation summary and documents
- Settlement Agreement (Apr. 1, 2016)
- Additional solitary confinement amicus briefs from several cases:
- Hamner v. Burls, No. 5.17-cv-79-JLH-BD (8th Cir., Oct. 23, 2019), Brief of Current and Former Prosecutors, Judges, and Department of Justice Officials as Amici Curiae in Support of Plaintiff-Appellant’s Petition for Rehearing
- Hamner v. Burls, No. 5.17-cv-79-JLH-BD (8th Cir., Oct. 23, 2019), Brief of Amici Curiae Human Rights Clinics, Law Professors, and Non-Profit Organizations in Support of Plaintiff-Appellant’s Petition for Rehearing by Panel and Rehearing En Banc
- Greenhill v. Clarke, No. 7:16-cv-00068 (4th Cir., Jan. 22, 2019), Brief of Amici Curiae Professors and Practitioners of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Medicine in Support of Plaintiff-Appellant and Reversal
- Former corrections directors: Porter v. Penn. DOC, No. 18–3505 (3d Cir., Mar. 20, 2019), Brief of Corrections Directors and Experts as Amici Curiae in Support of Plaintiff-Appellant and Reversal, Porter v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
- Hamner v. Burls, No. 5.17-cv-79-JLH-BD (8th Cir., Oct. 23, 2019), Brief Amicus Curiae of Professor John F. Stinneford in Support of the Petition of Plaintiff-Appellant Charles Hamner for Rehearing by Panel and/or Rehearing En Banc
Statutes, Treaties, and Regulations
- Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment, or Punishment, adopted Dec. 10, 1984, 1456 U.N.T.S. 85.
- U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) GA Res. 70/175 (Dec. 17, 2015)
Non-case Excerpts and Supplemental Documents
- Association of State Correctional Administrators & Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School, Reforming Restrictive Housing: The 2018 ASCA-Liman Nationwide Survey of Time-in-Cell (Oct. 2018)
- William Blake, A Sentence Worse Than Death, in Hell Is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement (2017)
- California Hunger Strikers’ Demands, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (June 2011)
- Amy Fettig, Are We Reaching a Tipping Point in the Campaign to End Solitary Confinement? and Why I Worked on the Mandela Rules (2020). (Both here)
- Juan Mendez, Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Interim report, A/66/268 (Aug. 5, 2011)
- Amy Fettig & Margo Schlanger, Eight Principles for Reforming Solitary Confinement, American Prospect (Oct. 6, 2015)
- Margo Schlanger, Incrementalist vs. Maximalist Reform: Solitary Confinement Case Studies, forthcoming, Nw. U. L. Rev. (2020)
Additional Reading
Other Cited Sources
History of American Solitary Confinement
- Jules Lobel, Mass Solitary and Mass Incarceration: Explaining the Dramatic Rise on Prolonged Solitary in America’s Prisons, forthcoming, Nw. U. L. Rev. (2020)
- Keramet Reiter, The Most Restrictive Alternative: A Litigation History of Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons, 1960-2006, 57 Studies in Law, Politics, and Soc’y 71, 106 (2012)
- Chase Riveland, Nat’l Inst. of Corr., Supermax Prisons: Overview and General Considerations, 1, 5 (1999)
- American Friends Service Committee, Lessons of Marion: The Failure of a Maximum Security Prison (1985)
- David Shapiro, Solitary Confinement in the Young Republic, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 542 (2019)
Contemporary Accounts
- Timeline of solitary confinement reform steps
- Todd Ashker, describing California reform campaign
- Leann K. Bertsch, Reflections on North Dakota’s Sustained Solitary Confinement Reform, in Solitary Confinement: Effects, Practices, and Pathways toward Reform 325 (Jules Lobel & Peter Scharff Smith, eds, 2020)
- Alan Duke, “Forgotten” inmate gets $15.5 million settlement from N.M. county, CNN (Mar. 8, 2013)
- Barbara Gomez-Aguinaga & Brooke Abrams, Solitary Confinement in New Mexico: A Review of Policies, Practices, and Inmate Experience in Isolation (ACLU of New Mexico, 2019)
- Mary Hudetz, Solitary confinement suits cost NM counties millions, Las Cruces Sun News, (Mar. 6, 2017)
- Rick Raemisch, Colorado Ends Prolonged, Indeterminate Solitary Confinement, in Solitary Confinement: Effects, Practices, and Pathways toward Reform 311 (Jules Lobel & Peter Scharff Smith, eds, 2020)
- Alexander A. Reinert, Solitary Troubles, 93 Notre Dame L. Rev. 927 (2018)
For More Information
- Standards/statements relating to solitary confinement
- American Bar Association
- American Correctional Association
- American Psychiatric Association
- American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- National Commission on Correctional Health Care
- American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) resolution
- Consensus Statement from the Santa Cruz Summit on Solitary Confinement and Health
- American Institute of Architects
- Michael Barajas, The Prison Inside Prison, Texas Observer (Jan. 21, 2020)
- Jules Lobel & Peter Scharff Smith, eds., Solitary Confinement: Effects, Practices, and Pathways toward Reform (2020)
- Keramet Reiter, 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement (2016)
- John Stinneford, Is Solitary Confinement A Punishment, forthcoming, Nw. U. L. Rev. (2020)