WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider how much flexibility corrections officials have to put inmates in super-maximum- security prisons.
Most states and the federal government have such prisons, intended to separate the most dangerous prisoners from other inmates.
Justices will review an appeal from Ohio, which opened a supersecurity prison with about 500 beds in 1998 after a deadly inmate riot five years earlier at a state prison.
In the so-called Ohio “supermax,” inmates are held in 23-hour-a-day lockdown, in 90-square-foot cells built to prevent prisoners from communicating with each other. They also face tighter security with strip searches and less access to telephones and personal items.
Civil rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit against the state on behalf of prisoners in 2001, claiming that the inmates were not given a chance to prove they didn’t belong in the Ohio State Penitentiary near Youngstown.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled earlier this year that prisoners are entitled to hearings, with witnesses, before being assigned to the prison.
Ohio Solicitor Douglas Cole told justices that the requirements imposed by the appeals court make it almost impossible to “neutralize the threats posed by dangerous inmates.”
“The question presented here has significant safety implications for tens of thousands of state prisoners,” he wrote in a court filing.
The case forces the Supreme Court to revisit a 1995 decision that limited prisoners’ rights to have hearings before they lose privileges or are disciplined for misconduct.
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