Robert C. Rufo, Sheriff of Suffolk County, et al. v. Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail, et al. (502 U.S. 367)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 15, 1992 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 502 U.S. 367 · 112 S. Ct. 748
- Decided
- January 15, 1992
- Term
- October Term 1991
- Vote
- 6–2
- Majority author
- Justice White
- Issue area
- Due Process
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. In these cases, the District Court denied a motion of the sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, to modify a consent decree entered to correct unconstitutional conditions at the Suffolk County Jail. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The issue before us is whether the courts below applied the correct standard in denying the motion. We hold that they did not and remand these cases for further proceedings. H-< This litigation began in 1971 when inmates sued the Suffolk County sheriff, the Commissioner of Correction for the State of Massachusetts, the mayor of Boston, and nine city councilors, claiming that inmates not yet convicted of the crimes charged against them were being held under unconstitutional conditions at what was then the Suffolk County Jail. The facility, known as the Charles Street Jail, had been constructed in 1848 with large tiers of barred cells. The numerous deficiencies of the jail, which had been treated with what a state court described as “malignant neglect,” Attorney General v. Sheriff of Suffolk County, 394 Mass. 624, 625, 477 N. E. 2d 361, 362 (1985), are documented in the decision of the District Court. See Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Eisenstadt, 360 F. Supp. 676, 679-684 (Mass. 1973). The court held that conditions at the jail were constitutionally deficient: “As a facility for the pretrial…
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