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20 Years in a Windowless Cell
Justice Kennedy finally figures out that solitary confinement is cruel and unusual.
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On Feb. 22, 1994, Justice Harry Blackmun handed down one of the most famous Supreme Court opinions of all time. Dissenting from the court’s decision to allow the execution of Bruce Edwin Callins, Blackmun graphically described Callins’ impending execution. The prisoner, Blackmun wrote, will “no longer be a defendant,” but “a man, strapped to a gurney, and seconds away from extinction.” Blackmun could not condone that fate. After years of struggling to enforce the death penalty fairly, Blackmun wrote, he was now convinced the entire system was unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual.”
“From this day forward,” he proclaimed, “I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.”
On Thursday, Justice Anthony Kennedy channeled his inner Blackmun. Using a fairly obscure case as his vehicle, Kennedy drew a line in the sand, all but declaring his belief that solitary confinement is often unconstitutional. Kennedy’s concurrence lacks the rhetorical force of Blackmun’s renowned dissent. But it may wind up being even more consequential.
The case in question, Davis v. Ayala, actually has nothing to do with solitary confinement. Hector Ayala wasn’t asking to be released from his solitary cell; he was asking for a new trial, because his first one may have been tainted by unconstitutional race-based jury strikes. By a vote of 5 to 4—with Kennedy joining the rock-ribbed conservatives—the court rejected his request, holding that any racism at his trial was “harmless.”
[center]
[/center]
On Feb. 22, 1994, Justice Harry Blackmun handed down one of the most famous Supreme Court opinions of all time. Dissenting from the court’s decision to allow the execution of Bruce Edwin Callins, Blackmun graphically described Callins’ impending execution. The prisoner, Blackmun wrote, will “no longer be a defendant,” but “a man, strapped to a gurney, and seconds away from extinction.” Blackmun could not condone that fate. After years of struggling to enforce the death penalty fairly, Blackmun wrote, he was now convinced the entire system was unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual.”
“From this day forward,” he proclaimed, “I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.”
On Thursday, Justice Anthony Kennedy channeled his inner Blackmun. Using a fairly obscure case as his vehicle, Kennedy drew a line in the sand, all but declaring his belief that solitary confinement is often unconstitutional. Kennedy’s concurrence lacks the rhetorical force of Blackmun’s renowned dissent. But it may wind up being even more consequential.
The case in question, Davis v. Ayala, actually has nothing to do with solitary confinement. Hector Ayala wasn’t asking to be released from his solitary cell; he was asking for a new trial, because his first one may have been tainted by unconstitutional race-based jury strikes. By a vote of 5 to 4—with Kennedy joining the rock-ribbed conservatives—the court rejected his request, holding that any racism at his trial was “harmless.”
Source.
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