Supreme Court indirectly considers supermax prison

SCOTUSblog has a helpful account here of Wilkinson v. Austin, the case to be argued in the Supreme Court tomorrow which concerns what sort of hearing process is required before an inmate can be transferred to a “supermax” facility.  Additional background on this case, with some helpful links, is available here from the Medill School of Journalism Supreme Court site.

I believe Austin presents the first opportunity for the Supreme Court to examine the most extreme form of imprisonment that our society has devised, although the legal issue in the case does not have the Court directly confronting the nature and conditions of supermax confinement.  Nevertheless, a number of amicus briefs have been filed which highlight for the Court the extreme nature of supermax confinement, and it seems possible that the Court might be influenced by these realities.

A website with resources on supermax prison facilities, entitled Supermaxed and linked here, highlights many of the common criticisms of this form of imprisonment.  A Human Rights Watch paper from February 2000, available here, provides additional background on supermax facilities.

UPDATE:  This AP story provides additional background on Austin.