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The Eighth Amendment and the Fifth Circuit

By Steve Hall

"Sotomayor dissents from cert denial in Louisana prisoner rights fight," is the title of Marcia Coyle's post at the National Law Journal Supreme Court Insider. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit took just four sentences to reject a Louisiana prisoner's claim of harsh treatment violating the Eighth Amendment. Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Monday took four pages to reject the panel decision and to open a small window into her views on pleading and the Eighth Amendment. Sotomayor was the sole dissenter from a denial of certiorari in Pitre v. Cain. When Anthony Pitre stopped taking his HIV medication to protest his transfer to a prison facility, he claimed that officials at that prison punished him by subjecting him to hard labor in 100-degree heat...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on October 20, 2010 (boomark / email).