Recent Legal Developments

• DOI: 10.1177/0734016814530757
• Date: 01 June 2014
• Author: James E. Robertson
• Published date: 01 June 2014
• Subject Matter: Recent Legal Developments

Recent Legal Developments

Recent Legal Developments:

Correctional Case Law: 2013

James E. Robertson

1

When Congress enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), P.L. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321

(2006), it faulted prisoner lawsuits for clogging the federal court system with a flood of largely mer-

itless cases (Robertson, 2000). While the number of inmate lawsuits has dropped dramatically—

down some 60%since 1995 (James, 2011), there remains what one commentator describes as the

‘‘caseload volume problem’’ (Cleveland, 2013, p. 49). Although the current ‘‘problem’’ is not attrib-

uted to inmate writ writers, inmates seeking federal judicial relief labor under internal procedural

reforms that Richman and Reynolds characterize as ‘‘appellate triage,’’ that is, a two-tiered system

of appeals before the U.S. Courts of Appeals (p. xii). The first and newest tier, which handles per-

haps 85%of all appealed cases, consists of several shortcuts in case processing, where ‘‘[t]here is no

oral argument, and conferences may occur in en masse (as many as fifty in a day), and thus the

judges often devote only a few minutes to each case,’’ leaving most of work to the ‘‘central staff’’

(p. xii). The other tier, one that embraces the common law tradition and creates precedent, could not

be more different: Judges ‘‘hear oral argument, confer at length, prepare multiple drafts, exchange

draft opinions with their colleagues, and eventually issue one long scholarly, heavily footnoted opin-

ion drafted personally by the judges with the help a few personal law clerks’’ (p. xii). For Richman

and Reynolds, the birth of an appellate triage system is a crisis in itself, one that primarily disadvan-

tages the poor, which includes most inmates, and the middle class.

In keeping with previous installments, this annual survey examines select prisoners’ rights cases

decided by the U.S. Courts of Appeals during 2013 and recommended for full-text publication in the

Federal Reporter, Third Series. As such, this survey addresses litigation in the second, preferred

tier—as described previously—of Federal appellate litigation.

The author chose the cases examined subsequently because they addressed persistent, important,

or emerging constitutional issues about confinement in jails and prisons. Because a summary judg-

ment for the defendants in these cases typically led to their appeal, the factual summaries of cases

discussed herein reflect the practice of the U.S. Courts of Appeals in such instances to view all facts

and draw all inferences in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs. As in the past, this installment

examines only constitutional issues raised before the U.S. Courts of Appeals and thus does not

address statutory interpretation.

1

Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN, USA

Corresponding Author:

James E. Robertson, Minnesota State University, 113 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001, USA.

Email: james.robertson@mnsu.edu

Criminal Justice Review

2014, Vol. 39(2) 233-246

ª2014 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/0734016814530757

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