In 1978, an inmate in the Alabama Prison System filed a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Alabama Department of Corrections in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. The plaintiff alleged that the defendants had violated his constitutional rights by utilizing sentencing procedures that confined him in a segregation cell for disciplinary reasons.

On December 15, 1978, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama (Judge Frank Minis Johnson, Jr.) held that the actions of the segregation review boards, which released some inmates from segregation long before their terms were served and confined others much longer than the fixed part of their sentences with only a perfunctory review and no objective criteria to guide them, violated the due process clause. The court also held that black prisoners suffered from racial discrimination in their confinement and retention in punitive segregation in violation of their right to equal protection under the constitution. The court ordered the Alabama State Board of Corrections to promulgate guidelines concerning operations of segregation review boards and make them available to prisoners confined in the segregation unit, to publish a list of valid factors that the review boards must consider in deciding whether to release an inmate from punitive segregation, and to provide written notice of the reasons for the bimonthly review board's actions to each prisoner denied release from segregation. McCray v. Bennett, 467 F.Supp. 187 (M.D.Ala. 1978). We have no further information on the proceedings in this case.

Kristen Sagar - 09/11/2006


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