Court Opinion

ID: 9713785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:22:25.683658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:20.565803
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Chibe Justice Bell:
I agree, as I assume virtually everybody does, that many of the prisons today are filthy, unhealthy, oppressive and often shocking, and for various reasons the safety and security of many inmates are sometimes in jeopardy. These disgraceful conditions are principally *99the result of (1) too few prisons and (2) insufficient funds (a) to modernize and humanize the conditions in the present prisons and (b) to adequately protect the welfare and safety of the inmates and provide essential prison reforms, including more and better recreation facilities, and realistic programs of rehabilitation.
Two questions are involved: (1) do the general prison conditions constitute a violation of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment,” and (2) will habeas corpus lie to correct all these outrageous and intolerable prison conditions?
Although these cases seem moot, and it is very doubtful whether habeas corpus will lie,* I believe that because of the tremendous importance of the issues involved we should consider them on their merits. Unfortunately, under the Majority Opinion, many prisoners in Holmesburg Prison and in other prisons in Pennsylvania would, under a writ of habeas corpus, have to be discharged or transferred to a slightly better prison, solely because of confinement in a prison under conditions which are intolerable. However, it is a far stretch of the Constitution to hold that these general prison conditions amount to “cruel and unusual punishment.”
It is a matter of common knowledge that many prisons are greatly overcrowded and provide deplorable living conditions, and many prisoners live in fear of dangerous inmates. Do these general prison conditions throughout our State compel a Court to hold, forgetting realities, that because of the racial and homosexual and other inhuman practices and the awful conditions existing therein, imprisonment in such a *100prison of every inmate accused or convicted of crime “constitutes cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Constitution? Notwithstanding Justice Eagen’s humane approach, I believe the holding of the Court is so unrealistic and Constitutionally farfetched that I am compelled to dissent.

 See the Pennsylvania decisions set forth in the Majority Opinion, which support my view.