"[I]t is fundamentally unreasonable for prison officials to respond to serious risks ... by intentionally creating those risks and offering to treat them after they predictably occur."
Thank you for reporting this. 40 years ago, I was a young public defender. Even then, the jail understood the risks to transgender women and housed them in protective custody. I applaud Judge Lamberth.
The Eighth Amendment still exists. Kudos to Judge Lambeth. Now can his court take up the issue of prolonged solitary confinement? Denial of proper medical treatment and food and sanitary conditions in ICE’s taxpayer funded private detention centers?
Without criticizing anything you've said, I think that there's a need for an important addition: that federal 8th amendment jurisprudence was substantially advanced specifically because of the efforts of Dee Farmer in Farmer v Brennan (originally filed pro se) whose suit ultimately successfully argued for that reckless disregard standard.
I think it matters in the analysis that our entire contemporary rape-in-prisons analysis is founded on the prevalence of the rape of trans prisoners and prison adminstrators' (at best) indifference to or (at worst) collaboration in those rapes.
Even PREA was a long-delayed response to Farmer v Brennan, where the courts largely declined to give teeth to Farmer, practically begging Congress to step in and provide specific standards through statute, while Congress wished to avoid anything that could be spun as protecting prisoners -- even from rape -- until at least court impatience made it appear that if Congress did nothing the standards imposed through case law might be more protective (and thus would appear more "sympathetic" to raped prisoners) and might require greater attention and duty from prison personnel.
We're in the situation with this case that we are **because** of the history of raped trans prisoners and the federal government's deep aversion to protecting people in their custody.
I think that historical context is important here (and also provides a chance to celebrate Dee Farmer, which is never a bad thing).
Thank you for reporting this. 40 years ago, I was a young public defender. Even then, the jail understood the risks to transgender women and housed them in protective custody. I applaud Judge Lamberth.
The Eighth Amendment still exists. Kudos to Judge Lambeth. Now can his court take up the issue of prolonged solitary confinement? Denial of proper medical treatment and food and sanitary conditions in ICE’s taxpayer funded private detention centers?
Thank you so much for covering this important human issue. It's about kindness, and no one in the admin seems to even know what that is.
Such good news!
What is next? Just skipping prison and standing trans women in front of a firing squad? This regime is insanely corrupt and abusive.
Without criticizing anything you've said, I think that there's a need for an important addition: that federal 8th amendment jurisprudence was substantially advanced specifically because of the efforts of Dee Farmer in Farmer v Brennan (originally filed pro se) whose suit ultimately successfully argued for that reckless disregard standard.
I think it matters in the analysis that our entire contemporary rape-in-prisons analysis is founded on the prevalence of the rape of trans prisoners and prison adminstrators' (at best) indifference to or (at worst) collaboration in those rapes.
Even PREA was a long-delayed response to Farmer v Brennan, where the courts largely declined to give teeth to Farmer, practically begging Congress to step in and provide specific standards through statute, while Congress wished to avoid anything that could be spun as protecting prisoners -- even from rape -- until at least court impatience made it appear that if Congress did nothing the standards imposed through case law might be more protective (and thus would appear more "sympathetic" to raped prisoners) and might require greater attention and duty from prison personnel.
We're in the situation with this case that we are **because** of the history of raped trans prisoners and the federal government's deep aversion to protecting people in their custody.
I think that historical context is important here (and also provides a chance to celebrate Dee Farmer, which is never a bad thing).