In Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730 (2002), Pryor vigorously defended Alabama's practice of handcuffing prison inmates to hitching posts in the hot sun if they refused to work on chain gangs or otherwise disrupted them. In 1995, Alabama was the only state in the country that still used chain gangs and the only one
that used the hitching post. 536 U.S. at 733. The post was a horizontal bar to which inmates were handcuffed "in a standing position and remain[ed] standing the entire time they [were] placed on the post." 536 U.S. at 734. The plaintiff in this case, Larry Hope, charged that he had been handcuffed to a hitching post twice, one time for seven hours, during which he was shirtless "while the sun burned his skin. . . During this 7-hour period, he was given water only once or twice and was given no bathroom breaks. ...
The Supreme Court rejected both of Pryor's arguments. According to the Court, "[d]espite the clear lack of an emergency situation, the respondents knowingly subjected [Hope] to a substantial risk of physical harm, to unnecessary pain caused by the handcuffs and the restricted position of confinement for a 7-hour period, to unnecessary exposure to the heat of the sun, to prolonged thirst and taunting, and to a deprivation of bathroom breaks that created a risk of particular discomfort and humiliation. The use of the hitching post under these circumstances violated ?'
the basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment, [which] is nothing less than the dignity of man.'"
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NEVER
SAY NEVER!
