Eighth Amendment

The act of upholding the Eighth Amendment now qualifies as “perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.”

More wisdom from Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia while dissenting from a 5-4 decision that ordered the state of California to abide by a lower court ruling to release 46,000 inmates from state prisons.

Scalia and the other three dissenting justices raise legitimate concerns that the court order could lead to increased crime, but prison conditions there are so horrid that they constitute “cruel and unusual punishment.”

The justices can read. The Eighth Amendment is so plain and simple that no citizen needs an attorney to explain it: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the May 23, 2011, majority opinion that care “falls below the standard of decency that inheres in the Eighth Amendment.” (I, a11, 5/24/11)

Overcrowding in California’s state’s prisons has already caused “needless suffering and death,” Kennedy added, according to Bloomsberg News. For at least 11 years, the prisons operated at double its design capacity.

He pointed out that up to 54 inmates could share a single toilet and that suicidal prisoners were held in cages the size of a telephone booth due to a shortage of treatment beds.

The New York Times even sent a reporter to a state prison in Chino, California, who wrote, “The rows of bunk beds, just a few inches apart, covered almost every empty space on the floor Tuesday afternoon. The gap between most beds allowed only the thinnest of inmates to stand comfortably.

“A few prisoners wandered around, but most simply rested on their thin mattresses, reading or dozing. As a rule, they go out in the yard just two or three times a week.”

Conditions have improved since 2006 when the suit was filed. The state has already started to comply with the original court order to reduce the the inmate population by 46,000 within two years, according to Bloomberg News. Advocates for the prisoners said that 32,000 more must be cut from the rolls.

Five justices - besides Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan - recognized these conditions as violations of the Eighth Amendment, but that was not good enough for the other four justices.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the majority “is gambling with the safety” of California’s citizens. “I fear that today’s decision, like prior prisoner release orders, will lead to a grim roster of victims,” Alito wrote for himself and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Scalia wrote for Justice Clarence Thomas and himself when he cited “what is perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.”

Kennedy countered that the prison population can be reduced “in a manner calculated to avoid an undue negative effect on public safety.”

Kennedy was referring in part to plans to transfer tens of thousands of inmates to local prisons under legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last April, according to Bloomsberg News.

Alito and friends have a legitimate concern. This transformation of prisoners could well cause a spike in crime for Californians. We should be concerned about that. On a personal level, I have relatives in California.

But the Supreme Court deals with the law, not law enforcement. The dissenters were not questioning whether California prison overcrowding violates the Constitution, but how release of the inmates might affect the state’s crime rate.

Many people would conclude that the overcrowded conditions constitute “cruel and unusual punishment,” but whether or not it does, the justices should confine their opinions to the legality of the case.

Crime is the responsibility of the police and other law enforcement agencies. Of course, police departments have often been understaffed and now budget cuts are forcing extensive layoffs in police departments.

Interestingly, this is due in large measure to acts of Scalia’s ideological comrades. The president appointed by Scalia and friends in 2000 failed to avert the 9/11 attacks and led us into the disastrous Iraq war that diverted hundreds of billions of dollars from domestic needs; congressional Republicans are trying to rip apart Medicare and refuse to raise taxes for the rich; and new governors, mostly Republicans, are slashing services and reducing taxes for the wealthy.

For the record, Alito and Roberts were not on the bench when George W. Bush was elevated - not elected - to the presidency in 2000 by a 5-4 majority vote of the Supreme Court.

Scalia’s continued presence on the court may well constitute cruel and unusual punishment for the American people.