Cruz v. Ward

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge:

This is an appeal from a judgment by Judge Goettel of the Southern District holding that New York State has been violating the fourteenth amendment by returning mental patients from hospital to prison without adequate procedural protections. We conclude that the inmates have not been deprived of due process or subjected to cruel and unusual punishment and accordingly we reverse.

I

State prison inmates adjudged in need of institutional care for mental illness are sent to Matteawan State Hospital, which is part of a medium-security facility in Beacon, New York.1 Although…