Supreme Court Hears Prison Racial Segregation Case

• Calif.'s Unique Policy of Temporarily Separating Prisoners is Challenged

With Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist sidelined by illness for a second straight day, the Supreme Court turned its attention to a case of racial segregation in prison yesterday as an attorney for an African American inmate in California urged the justices to overturn a state policy that places new prisoners in cells according to their race. California says that its policy, which is unwritten and unique in the nation, does not violate the Constitution because it is necessary to prevent gang-related interracial violence and because the separation of races occurs only during the prisoners' first 60 days of incarceration or when they are being transferred between prisons. But at yesterday's oral argument, Bert H. Deixler, representing inmate Garrison Johnson, noted that the court has already said any race-based government policy has to be subjected to "strict scrutiny," and he contended that California's justifications cannot pass that stringent test. The state has "effectively erected 'Whites Only,' 'Blacks Only' and 'Hispanics Only' signs over the portal of California prisons," Deixler said. Deixler had the support of the Bush administration. Acting Solicitor General Paul D. Clement said the case "presents this court with an opportunity to reaffirm that all government policies based on race should be subject to strict scrutiny." Under the policy in question, pairs of newly arrived blacks, whites and Latinos are put in separate two-man cells until prison authorities have had 60 days to determine which of them, if any, is a member of one of California's racially distinct gangs, such as the black Crips or the white Aryan Nations. The court banned permanent racial segregation in prisons in 1968. [more]