Ruiz v. Estelle

rdf:langString Ruiz v. Estelle

rdf:langString Ruiz v. Estelle, 503 F. Supp. 1265 (S.D. Tex. 1980), filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, eventually became the most far-reaching lawsuit on the conditions of prison incarceration in American history. It began as a civil action, a handwritten petition filed against the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) in 1972 by inmate David Resendez Ruíz alleging that the conditions of his incarceration, such as overcrowding, lack of access to health care, and abusive security practices, were a violation of his constitutional rights. In 1974, the petition was joined by seven other inmates and became a class action suit known as Ruiz v. Estelle, 550 F.2d 238. The trial ended in 1979 with the ruling that the conditions of imprisonment within the TDC prison system constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the United States Constitution, with the original report issued in 1980, a 118-page decision by Judge William Justice (Ruiz v. Estelle, 503 F.Supp. 1295). The decision led to federal oversight of the system, with a prison construction boom and "sweeping reforms ... that fundamentally changed how Texas prisons operated."