James Dean Walker v. A. L. Lockhart, Superintendent of the Arkansas Department of Corrections

James Dean Walker, an inmate in the Arkansas prison system, petitions this court for an order enjoining Arkansas prison officials from transferring him from protective custody in the Diagnostic Unit at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to other conditions of confinement pending this court’s ruling on the merits of Walker’s appeal in his civil rights action against A. L. Lockhart, Superintendent of the Arkansas Department of Corrections. For the reasons outlined below, we grant the injunction pending appeal.

I. Background.

In 1975, Walker failed to return from a furlough to the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas…