The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a Texas inmate convicted of robbery who argues that the 27 years he was forced by prison officials to spend in solitary confinement violated the constitutional bar against 'cruel and unusual' punishment.
The justices turned away Dennis Hope's appeal of a lower court's ruling that he had failed to show that his prolonged solitary confinement violated the U.S. Constitution Eighth Amendment prohibition on excessive punishment.
Hope, who is still in prison but as of last year no longer in solitary confinement, filed a civil rights lawsuit against prison officials in 2018. A federal judge in Texas in 2020 dismissed Hope's lawsuit, finding that his allegations failed to "rise to the level of a violation of the Eighth Amendment," and the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2021 agreed.
About a week after Hope's filing, Texas officials initiated a process that culminated with Hope's transfer out of solitary confinement into the prison general population. Hope and Texas officials then sought to negotiate a settlement but failed to reach an agreement, prompting the parties in March to ask the Supreme Court to resume consideration of Hope's appeal.
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