Ruiz Vs Estelle Case Study
Alejandra Flores
Mr. Perez
GOVT 2306
May 6, 2014
Ruiz v. Estelle
Ruiz v. Estelle, filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, eventually became the most far-reaching lawsuit on the conditions of prison incarceration in American history. It began as a civil action, a handwritten petition filed against the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) in 1972 by inmate David Resendez Ruiz alleging that the conditions of his incarceration, such as overcrowding, lack of access to health care, and abusive security practices, were a violation of his constitutional rights. In 1974, the petition was joined by seven other inmates and became a class action suit known as Ruiz v. Estelle. The trial ended in 1979 with the ruling …show more content…
that the conditions of imprisonment within the TDC prison system constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the United States Constitution, with the original report issued in 1980, a 118 page decision by Judge William Justice.
There followed decades of further litigation in the form of consent decrees, appeals and other legal actions, until a final judgment was rendered in 1992. But problems in enforcement continued, and in 1996 U.S. Congress enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) to address these issues as well as abuse of the prison litigation process.
However, in October 1997, the district court, still not satisfied with the compliance of the TDC, gave permission for continuing site visits by attorneys and experts for the inmate class, and this continued into 1999.
In response to this, the TDC issued more than 450,000 pages of evidence and accepted 50 additional site visits. In 2001, the court found that the TDC was in compliance on the issue of use of force against inmates and had adequate policies and procedures in place. However, the court continued to have issues with the current and ongoing constitutional violations regarding administrative segregation in the conditions of confinement and the practice of using administrative segregation to house mentally ill inmates that it …show more content…
found.
Judge Justice ordered sweeping and dramatic changes in the state's prison system. Texas officials filed appeals that lead to reversing parts of Justice's 1980 ruling. An agreement was reached that there would be a 95 percent prison capacity, the separation of hardcore offenders from other inmates, the hiring of more prison guards and improving of the medical treatment of prisoners. Judge Justice had an iron hand on the oversight of the prison system until 1994, and maintained limited control until 2003. To comply with the 95 percent cap, prisoners were given early releases for good behavior and others, usually nonviolent criminals, served only a fraction of their prison sentences.
In 2007, in the consolidated case of Jones v. Bock the U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, set forth limitations on the extent of prison litigation.
The state's rapidly growing population meant that even if crime rates stayed the same, the Texas prison system would need much greater capacity.
So, by the end of the 1980s the state embarked on a massive prison construction program. At the time of the Ruiz trial the state operated just eighteen prison facilities for approximately 25,000 inmates. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the state built an additional eighty-nine units of varying sizes and types to accommodate more than 140,000 prisoners. New units have continued to come on line over the past decade to accommodate a state prison population whose numbers have leveled off at approximately
142,000.
Work Cited
Jackson, Bruce. "Texas Prisons Go On Trial." Nation 227.14 (1978): 437. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 6 May 2014.
Price, Keith, J., and Coleman, Susan. "Narrative Of Neglect: Texas Prisons For Men." East Texas Historical Journal 49.2 (2011): 44-68. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 May 2014.
Rafter, Nicole Hahn, and Debra Stanley. Prisons In America : A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 6 May 2014.
Reynolds, Carl. "The Final Chapters Of Ruiz V. Estelle." Corrections Today 64.3 (2002): 108. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 6 May 2014.
Mr. Perez
GOVT 2306
May 6, 2014
Ruiz v. Estelle
Ruiz v. Estelle, filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, eventually became the most far-reaching lawsuit on the conditions of prison incarceration in American history. It began as a civil action, a handwritten petition filed against the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) in 1972 by inmate David Resendez Ruiz alleging that the conditions of his incarceration, such as overcrowding, lack of access to health care, and abusive security practices, were a violation of his constitutional rights. In 1974, the petition was joined by seven other inmates and became a class action suit known as Ruiz v. Estelle. The trial ended in 1979 with the ruling …show more content…
that the conditions of imprisonment within the TDC prison system constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the United States Constitution, with the original report issued in 1980, a 118 page decision by Judge William Justice.
There followed decades of further litigation in the form of consent decrees, appeals and other legal actions, until a final judgment was rendered in 1992. But problems in enforcement continued, and in 1996 U.S. Congress enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) to address these issues as well as abuse of the prison litigation process.
However, in October 1997, the district court, still not satisfied with the compliance of the TDC, gave permission for continuing site visits by attorneys and experts for the inmate class, and this continued into 1999.
In response to this, the TDC issued more than 450,000 pages of evidence and accepted 50 additional site visits. In 2001, the court found that the TDC was in compliance on the issue of use of force against inmates and had adequate policies and procedures in place. However, the court continued to have issues with the current and ongoing constitutional violations regarding administrative segregation in the conditions of confinement and the practice of using administrative segregation to house mentally ill inmates that it …show more content…
found.
Judge Justice ordered sweeping and dramatic changes in the state's prison system. Texas officials filed appeals that lead to reversing parts of Justice's 1980 ruling. An agreement was reached that there would be a 95 percent prison capacity, the separation of hardcore offenders from other inmates, the hiring of more prison guards and improving of the medical treatment of prisoners. Judge Justice had an iron hand on the oversight of the prison system until 1994, and maintained limited control until 2003. To comply with the 95 percent cap, prisoners were given early releases for good behavior and others, usually nonviolent criminals, served only a fraction of their prison sentences.
In 2007, in the consolidated case of Jones v. Bock the U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, set forth limitations on the extent of prison litigation.
The state's rapidly growing population meant that even if crime rates stayed the same, the Texas prison system would need much greater capacity.
So, by the end of the 1980s the state embarked on a massive prison construction program. At the time of the Ruiz trial the state operated just eighteen prison facilities for approximately 25,000 inmates. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the state built an additional eighty-nine units of varying sizes and types to accommodate more than 140,000 prisoners. New units have continued to come on line over the past decade to accommodate a state prison population whose numbers have leveled off at approximately
142,000.
Work Cited
Jackson, Bruce. "Texas Prisons Go On Trial." Nation 227.14 (1978): 437. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 6 May 2014.
Price, Keith, J., and Coleman, Susan. "Narrative Of Neglect: Texas Prisons For Men." East Texas Historical Journal 49.2 (2011): 44-68. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 May 2014.
Rafter, Nicole Hahn, and Debra Stanley. Prisons In America : A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 6 May 2014.
Reynolds, Carl. "The Final Chapters Of Ruiz V. Estelle." Corrections Today 64.3 (2002): 108. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 6 May 2014.