Court Opinion

ID: 9477508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:25:15.777249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:54.987764
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
After marching up the hill to uphold very ably and convincingly the five hour exercise prescription, the majority marches down the other side to somehow find three showers clearly erroneous. This is puzzling, because in the minds of most Americans there is some considerable linkage between occasions of vigorous exercise and the need for showers. In addition, I doubt that American tourists, whose observations the majority cites, would recommend importing at random foreign standards of bal-neation, even into maximum security prisons. As a matter of fact, the majority may be maligning foreigners since the Japanese, for example, have traditionally surpassed Westerners in their zeal for frequent bathing.
Whatever may be the dubious logic of the majority’s stand on- showers, a one-shower-a-week regimen takes us back in memory to the days of the Saturday night bath in a washtub with water heated on a wood stove. But that is history. Indoor plumbing has now been with us for some years — even in prisons. I have the impression the jury in bringing in its verdict understood some of these things better than the majority.
No less an authority than Dr. Shansky, the medical director of the Illinois Department of Corrections, testified that three showers are the weekly minimum (in connection with adequate exercise) necessary to prevent serious adverse effects on the physical and mental health of inmates in what amounts to solitary confinement. On that basis alone, I have great difficulty in seeing how Judge Hart’s conclusion can be called clearly erroneous. I therefore respectfully dissent on the shower reversal.
On another point, the majority says that, “the infliction of disutility ... is one of the objectives of criminal punishment....” Supra p. 1313 (Emphasis supplied). This sounds a bit ominous to me — assuming that I understand it. On that shaky premise, I would also most respectfully disagree on this point.