You're in Jail but Not Convicted. What Can the Guards Do to You?
They slammed Michael Kingsley onto a concrete bunk, he says, and shouted 'Taze his ass!' The U.S. Supreme Court hears Kingsley v. Hendrickson today
An inmate at a facility in Los Angeles.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Are you really innocent until proven guilty?
Kingsley v. Hendrickson, being heard today by the U.S. Supreme Court, is about whether people in jails who have not yet been tried should be treated differently from those who have already been convicted. This goes to the core of the presumption of innocence, one of the oldest tenets of our legal doctrine. Yet here it is, in 2015, in front of the high court.