Incarcerated people at the St. Louis City Jail in Missouri filed a class action lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against representatives of the city in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The plaintiffs, represented by the Legal Aid Society, alleged that their civil rights had been violated by inadequacies at the jail, including overcrowding, sanitation and living conditions, discipline and procedures for solitary confinement, rules for mail and visitation, inadequate medical care, food, corporal punishment of prisoners, and failure to return personal property.

On July 13, 1973, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri (Judge William Webster) granted injunctive relief to the prisoners, holding that use of solitary confinement did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment, but that confinement of three men in tiny two-man cells, the absence of recreational facilities, low quality of food services, inadequate ventilation, excessive corporal punishment of prisoners, and subjecting prisoners to disciplinary confinement without any grievance procedures violated the prisoners' constitutional rights. Johnson v. Lark, 365 F.Supp. 289 (E.D.Mis. 1973).

Kristen Sagar - 03/14/2006


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