...Nearly five years ago, a group of men incarcerated at Pelican Bay State Prison reached a landmark legal settlement with California to end the state’s practice of long-term, indefinite solitary confinement.
But on May 12, their attorneys told a federal appeals court that many are still held in de facto solitary confinement. Some are even more isolated now than when the lawsuit was filed, they said.
“When the class settled this case for a promise that they would be released from solitary confinement, they did not agree to being placed in solitary confinement by another name,” Rachel Meeropol, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights and a member of the legal team representing the incarcerated men, told reporters on a May 11 press call. ...