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location: publications / books / Prisoners of Isolation: Solitary Confinement in Canada / Chapter 4 McCann v. The Queen: The Structure of the Legal Argument / Cruel and Unusual Punishment ot Treatment

Wright v. McCann58 dealt with the practice in the New York State prison system that permitted indefinite detention in conditions of solitary confinement. The court concluded that this allowed

the Sword of Damocles to hang for considerable periods of time and unquestionably must cause mental aggravation and unrest in a prisoner's mind solely because of indefiniteness ...Deputy Warden Delong, who has apparently peremptorily imposed a great number of segregation confinement sentences, mostly indefinite, testified in his deposition ...if the prisoner in segregation did not come around to the unwritten criteria he wanted, such criteria being subjective and derived from custom, he had the discretion under certain circumstances to keep a prisoner in segregation during his whole term.59

Although Spain v. Procunier60 was decided after judgment was rendered in the McCann case, the decision of District Judge Zirpoli is of special interest because the prisoners in that case had criminal and penitentiary records similar to those of some of the McCann plaintiffs; in addition, they were confined under a similar regime and for reasons that corresponded with the rationales for confinement of several of the McCann plaintiffs.61 The prisoners in Spain v. Procunier had been jointly indicted on three counts of murder of correctional officers and two counts of murder of other prisoners. They had been also indicted on several separate counts of aggravated assault on three other officers. The prisoners had been confined in maximum-security segregation on the first and most restricted tier of San Quentin's Adjustment Center since August 1971.62 At the time of trial, they had spent in excess of four years in segregation. The prison authorities cited the prisoners' pending trial on murder and assault indictments as the primary justification for their continuous confinement in segregation.

Like SCU, the Adjustment Center 'is the newest ...of San Quentin's antiquated housing facilities'; but according to Judge Zirpoli, 'it nevertheless has become a "hole" for isolated segregation because of the prolonged and restrictive housing conditions and dehumanizing restraints placed upon those who are housed there.'63 The court described cell conditions in the Adjustment Center at San Quentin. Like those in SCU, the concrete cells contained no furnishings other than a sleeping platform, a sink, and a toilet. Unlike the SCU cell, the San Quentin cell had a barred rather than a solid door, was equipped with a light that could be controlled by the prisoner and with a sink that provided both hot and cold water. The regimes in both institutions were similar. Prisoners were not permitted to work or to engage in recreational activities, and all visits took place behind screens. During visits, prisoners were at all times required to wear special white coveralls and were restrained by hand manacles, waist belts, leg- irons, and neck chains. They were strip-searched before and after such visits. With the exception of the neck chains, these were the prevailing practices for visits in SCU. Prisoners in the Adjustment Center were confined to their cells twenty-four hours a day, except for periods of tier exercise (in the corridor), one prisoner at a time, one hour per day, five days a week. However, the court found that in practice the exercise time actually worked out to less than five days a week and often to less than one hour per period. Prisoners were never permitted yard or outdoor privileges or exercise. In addition to the regular cells, the Adjustment Center had a series of 'management cells,' each of which had a small anteroom with a solid steel door. These cells were used for disciplinary purposes.64

Judge Zirpoli, on the basis of the extensive evidence heard from the prisoners, former guards, and expert witnesses, held:

The continued segregated confinement of plaintiffs to the first tier of the Adjustment Center not only militates against reform and rehabilitation of plaintiffs, but is so counterproductive that it instills in them a deeper hatred for and alienation from the society that initially justly put them there. Plaintiffs live in an atmosphere of fear and apprehension and are confined under degrading conditions without affirmative programs of training or rehabilitation and without possible rewards or incentives from the State which will give them a semblance of hope for their transfer out of the Adjustment Center. The Court comes to the conclusion that the continuous segregation of plaintiffs 24 hours a day, except for meager out-of-cell movements and tier exercise; the denial to plaintiffs of fresh air and regular outdoor exercise and recreation; the unwarranted and cruel use of tear gas to remove plaintiffs from their cells with its consequent dangers of injuries to plaintiffs or occupants of nearby cells; and the abhorrent and shocking use of excessive restraints, the combined form of hand manacles, waist belt, leg chains and neck chains for all of plaintiffs' out-of-prison movements, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.65

Judge Zirpoli also found that the prison authorities' 'vague assertions that plaintiffs are revolutionary, disruptive, destructive, militant, aggressive or violent and their specifically asserted primary claim that plaintiffs must be held in the Adjustment Center until the termination of the ...trial (on charges as to which they are presumed to be innocent) fail to constitute a rational security related justification for the continued confinement of the plaintiffs in the Adjustment Center.'66

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