[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website] on Tuesday ruled [opinion, PDF] that Virginia can continue to automatically house death row inmates in solitary confinement. The appeals court decision reversed US District Judge Leonie Brinkema’s 2013 ruling [AP report] that the procedural due process rights of a capital prisoner were violated by the state’s policy requiring his placement in solitary confinement. The district court then ordered state officials to either alter the policy so individual circumstances are taken into account before placing a death-row inmate in solitary confinement, or improve the conditions. Despite acknowledging that the district court, “perhaps correctly,” described Virginia’s death row as “dehumanizing,” the appeals court held that state correctional officials have broad latitude to set prison conditions as they see fit, including a policy that sets death row conditions without taking individual circumstances into account. It is unknown whether the case will be appealed.

The legality of solitary confinement [JURIST news archive] has been an ongoing debate in the US, with many calling for comprehensive prison reform [JURIST podcast]. In June Colorado enacted a law changing its traditional methods of solitary confinement [JURIST report] by mandating psychiatric evaluations and therapy for inmates diagnosed with mental illness and qualifying for disciplinary intervention. In February New York issued reforms [JURIST report] the use of such practices on minors. In October 2013 UN Special Rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez urged the US to immediately end [JURIST report] the solitary confinement imposed in 1972 on Albert Woodfox [AI backgrounder]. In June 2011 at least 400 inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison in California initiated a hunger strike [JURIST report] in protest of solitary confinement. In January 2011 the Washington Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that holding death row inmates in solitary confinement indefinitely is not an impermissible increase [JURIST report] in the severity of punishment.