The prisoners write in carefully lettered script or on old electric typewriters. There are sometimes grammatical errors or misspellings. But the language is direct. They describe facing Stage 4 cancer ...

A group of homeless plaintiffs argue that local laws aimed at banning sleeping outside violated their constitutional rights. The city claims that’s not what the Eighth Amendment means. By Abbie ...

In the 1980s and 1990s, a series of Supreme Court decisions and a new law sought to curb "frivolous" prisoner lawsuits and give more deference to prison officials. Together, they changed the legal ...

"This trial win is significant because it upholds the Eighth Amendment, which is a difficult test. The punitive damages verdict sends a powerful message that the acts that took place here were extreme ...

In a 6-to-3 decision that should have been slam-bang unanimous, the Supreme Court ruled today in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson that a city does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and ...

Editor's note: This is a regular feature on issues related to the Constitution and civics education written by Paul G. Summers, retired judge and state attorney general. The U.S. Constitution is the ...

Six years ago, in Timbs v. Indiana, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a majority opinion that pointed out the origins of the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause and the original ...

We analyzed nearly 1,500 cases to obtain data on prisoner litigation. We found that constitutional protections have been dramatically weakened. In the 1980s and 1990s, a series of Supreme Court ...