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.
He was convicted in 1990 of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. Following a 1994 prison escape, Hope was placed by prison officials in solitary confinement. In court papers, Hope described spending between 22 and 24 hours a day in a cell 9 feet long and 6 feet wide (2.7 meters by 1.8 meters) – “no larger than a parking space.” Hope said he continued to be held in solitary confinement despite being deemed by Texas security officials in 2005 to no longer pose an escape risk.
He was deprived of nearly all human contact aside from interactions with prison staff, and said he suffered…
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