[A] preference for solitary confinement over the probability of death is not a real choice. Sweet v. South Carolina Dept. of Corrections, 529 F.2d 854, 868 (4th Cir. 1975) (Butzner, J., concurring).See also Breeden v. Jackson, 457 F.2d 578, 581-82 (4th Cir. 1972) (Craven, J., dissenting).
Further, "the conditions of solitary or segregated confinement must be measured against what the Supreme Court has termed 'the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.'" Sweet v. S.C. Dep't of Corr., 529 F.2d 854, 860 (4th Cir. 1975) (en banc) (quoting Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101 (1958) (plurality opinion)). To sustain an Eighth Amendment claim, a prisoner must show two things: 1) "the deprivation suffered or injury inflicted on the inmate was sufficiently serious (objective component)," and 2) "the prison official acted with a sufficiently culpable state of mind (subjective component)."
Prisoners have the right, secured by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, to be reasonably protected from the threat of violence and sexual assault. See Woodhous v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 487 F.2d 889, 890 (4th Cir. 1973); Sweet v. South Carolina Department of Corrections, 529 F.2d 854, 858 (4th Cir. 1975). Prisoners likewise have the right not to be subjected to the unreasonable threat of injury or death by fire.
Id. at 355. And the Court set its decision apart from earlier ones like Sweet v. South Carolina Department of Corrections , 529 F.2d 854 (4th Cir. 1975), which it believed "lacked the benefit of the recent academic literature ... concerning the harmful psychological and emotional effects of prolonged solitary confinement." Porter , 923 F.3d at 358.
Appellants’ Br. at 43–48. First, State Defendants maintain—and our colleague in dissent agrees—that the district court erred because this Court’s decisions in Sweet v. South Carolina Department of Correction , 529 F.2d 854 (4th Cir. 1975) (en banc), and Mickle v. Moore , 174 F.3d 464 (4th Cir. 1999), upheld conditions of confinement that are "squarely analogous" to the challenged conditions on Virginia’s death row. Appellants’ Br. at 44.
These conditions are indeed restrictive, but the restrictive nature of high-security incarceration does not alone constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Sweet v. South Carolina Dep't of Corrections, 529 F.2d 854, 857 n. 1 (4th Cir. 1975) (en banc). To make out a violation of the Eighth Amendment, the inmates "must show both (1) a serious deprivation of a basic human need; and (2) deliberate indifference to prison conditions on the part of prison officials."
This Court has repeatedly stated that when reviewing Eighth Amendment claims, courts must consider the totality of the circumstances. Clay v. Miller, 626 F.2d 345, 347 (4th Cir. 1980); Kirby v. Blackledge, 530 F.2d 583, 587 (4th Cir. 1976); Sweet v. South Carolina Dept. of Corrections, 529 F.2d 854, 865 (4th Cir. 1975). "`Cruel and unusual punishment,' as used in the Eighth Amendment, . . . does not draw its meaning simply from the type of punishment or deprivation imposed; it is often intimately concerned with the time covered by the punishment or deprivation and the reasonable limits of prison supervision."
In reviewing the Eighth Amendment claims of prisoners confined in segregation, federal courts of appeals have recognized that the length of time in isolation is a factor which must be considered. See, e.g., Bono v. Saxbe, 620 F.2d 609, 614 (7th Cir. 1980); Sweet v. South Carolina Dept. of Corrections, 529 F.2d 854, 861 (4th Cir. 1975) (en banc); O'Brien v. Moriarty, 489 F.2d 941, 944 (1st Cir. 1974). As the First Circuit recently stated,
In 1975, this Court sitting en banc reiterated that segregated confinement is not per se unconstitutional. Sweet v. South Carolina Department of Corrections, 529 F.2d 854, 860-62 (4th Cir. 1975). In Sweet, the plaintiff, who had requested that he be placed in segregated confinement, brought a civil rights action seeking additional privileges.
A restriction on prisoners' religious expression will not be deemed unconstitutional if the restriction is necessary to safeguard legitimate institutional and penological interests; moreover, correctional officials' appraisal of those interests command great deference on the part of the courts. See Sweet v. South Carolina Department of Corrections, 529 F.2d 854 (4 Cir. 1975) (en banc); cf. Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union, Inc., 433 U.S. 119, 128, 97 S.Ct. 2532, 2539, 53 L.Ed.2d 629 (1977) (rights of speech and association); Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 404-05, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 1807, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974) (right to correspond with nonprisoners). But the determinations of prison officials of the need for restrictions are not dispositive; such restrictions are subject to judicial review and will be struck down where they are not "reasonably and substantially justified by considerations of prison discipline and order."