The prisoners write in carefully lettered script or on old electric typewriters. There are sometimes grammatical errors or misspellings. But the language is direct. They describe facing Stage 4 cancer ...

Over the past decade, Minnesota's prisons have experienced officer assaults, lockdowns, and chronic staffing shortages. They have faced allegations of substandard medical care, inhumane living ...

In the 1980s and 1990s, a series of Supreme Court decisions and a new law sought to curb "frivolous" prisoner lawsuits and give more deference to prison officials. Together, they changed the legal ...

The Supreme Court is set to hear a case Tuesday that could expand prisoner access to jury trials. The case relates to the PLRA, a 1996 law requiring prisoners to pursue a prison grievance before ...

The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution protects us from “cruel and unusual punishment” by the government. This seemingly simple language raises a host of complicated questions. “Cruel” by what ...

Arizona prison officials were deliberately indifferent to "grossly inadequate" medical and mental health care, violating inmates' Eighth Amendment rights, a federal judge ruled Thursday in a ...

Four years ago, a Ninth Circuit panel ruled (in Martin v. City of Boise) that “the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment bars a city from prosecuting people criminally for ...

Oral argument before the Supreme Court this week showed why it is nonsense to claim that anti-vagrancy laws violate the Constitution‘s Eighth Amendment provision against “cruel and unusual punishment.

Following is a lightly edited transcript of The New York Sun's "interview" with the Eighth Amendment; it's the first interview with a member of the Bill of Rights since we interviewed the Fifth ...