Monday, November 24, 2014

Johnson v. California = strict scrutiny - after remand

In Constitutional Law you may read a case about the California prison system and an unwritten policy that upon entering a new facility prisoners were racially segregated for up to 60 days while backgrounds were checked.  California claimed it was to try and reduce racially based gangs from fighting. This would seem like a compelling state interest based on the historic background with California Prisons and gang violence (http://www.businessinsider.com/most-dangerous-prison-gangs-in-the-us-2014-2).

However the Supreme Court determined that no matter what when there is racial classifications the strict scrutiny test must be used.
Supreme Court opinion can be found https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/541/428/
and the definition of strict scrutiny you can visit http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/strict_scrutiny

What happened after Johnson v. California was reserved and remanded was slightly harder to find out.  On page 294 of the following article Racial Desegregation in Prisons from The Prison Journal it is stated that on remand the matter was settled through mediation and the California Prison System policy would change.


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