BELLEVILLE, Ill., Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Illinois is expected to appeal a ruling that inmates sent to the Tamms Correctional Center are entitled to a hearing challenging their transfer, officials said.
However, a petition to the 7th U.S. Court of Appeals probably won't be filed until a motion to reconsider the guaranteed hearing is heard by the judge who made it, the Belleville News-Democrat reported.
The Illinois Department of Corrections has filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge G. Patrick Murphy to reconsider his ruling, which allows inmates challenge their transfer to the state's super-maximum security prison.
An underlying concern complicating the issue involves Murphy's opinion that long-term solitary confinement at the prison does psychological and emotional harm to inmates.
In his ruling granting the transfer hearing, Murphy said long-term solitary confinement "imposes dramatic limitations on human contact, so much so as to inflict lasting psychological and emotional harm on inmates confined there for long periods."
The comment is Murphy's opinion, and not law, but could carry weight in future inmate lawsuits, an attorney said.
"While the law is not clear, I would argue that many of these inmates who are psychologically damaged who sue ... the fact that they were damaged has already been established and cannot be contested in any future case," said Alan S. Mills, a Chicago attorney who represented dozens of Tamms inmates in civil lawsuits.
