Johnson v. Prentice

The district court absolved the Illinois Department of Corrections from accountability in their negligent and abhorrent treatment of Michael Johnson, who spent 24 hours a day locked in a hermetically sealed box approximately the size of a parking space and was denied virtually all out-of-cell time for nearly three years. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting alongside incarcerated people like Mr. Johnson, who are subjected to long-term solitary confinement – a cruel and unusual punishment that violates incarcerated people’s Eighth Amendment right.

For three years, Michael Johnson, a seriously mentally ill prisoner, spent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a windowless cell the size of a compact parking space behind a solid steel door. Michael was not allowed the standard five hours out of cell for exercise per week afforded to other prisoners in solitary confinement. Instead, he was denied all opportunities to exercise – he saw no sunlight, spoke to nobody and was unable to walk more than a few feet across the cell for all three years.

In those tortuous conditions, Mr. Johnson’s severe mental illness worsened, alongside his physical health. His muscles withered, he repeatedly smeared feces on his body, endured hallucinations, compulsively picked at his flesh and repeatedly required suicide watch.

The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) attempted to justify their decision to deprive him of all exercise by claiming that Mr. Johnson repeatedly disobeyed prison rules. But none of Mr. Johnson’s infractions occurred during or had any relation to out-of-cell exercise and instead were caused by his worsening mental illness. As a result, the IDOC created a vicious cycle of torture as punishment, which did not serve any security purpose.

Mr. Johnson sued the IDOC pro se – without an attorney – but the district court awarded summary judgement to the IDOC, reasoning that neither the 24/7 solitary confinement nor the inadequate mental health care that accompanied and prolonged it amounted to a deprivation of the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities.

The MacArthur Justice Center represents Mr. Johnson on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

UPDATE

After an equally divided Seventh Circuit en banc court sanctioned this torture, the MacArthur Justice Center filed a cert petition with the Supreme Court, asking it to decide whether Michael’s conditions in solitary violated the Eighth Amendment. As it stands, the three states in the Seventh Circuit have the green light to practice this torture on their inmates.

On November 13, 2023, the petition for certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court. Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan, dissented. They argue that the Seventh Circuit erred fundamentally by disregarding settled Supreme Court jurisprudence interpreting the Eighth Amendment