Justice Ginsburg recognized prisoners as rights-bearing individuals and was willing, more frequently than most of her colleagues, to uphold those rights against government challenges. The reality, of course, is that no Supreme Court justice in recent memory has been a consistent champion of the rights of incarcerated people. Bazzetta, which upheld draconian visiting restrictions in Michigan prisons, including a potential lifetime ban on visits for prisoners found guilty of substance-abuse violations. But she also joined the court’s opinion in Overton v. Banks, when the court upheld 23-hour solitary confinement without newspapers, radio, television, or telephone calls. Nussle, which erected new barriers for prisoners seeking to vindicate their rights in federal courts. Wilkinson, which enhanced protection for prisoners’ religious rights. On prisoners’ rights, Justice Ginsburg was an inconstant ally. Andrea Armstrong, law professor at Loyola University New Orleans In other words, she just wasn't a leader in this particular area of jurisprudence-but that doesn't negate her tremendous influence in other areas of law. Meanwhile, in split decisions, she generally sided with the more liberal justices, but she was not the primary author. When she did author a decision on these issues, it was generally when the court was unanimous or near unanimous.
She wasn’t the primary author on any of our blockbuster human-rights-in-prison cases. When it came to prison conditions and the rights of incarcerated people, Justice Ginsburg simply wasn’t as visible. Here’s a look at Ginsburg’s record on policing, fair trials, sentencing, prison conditions, racial justice, Native rights and more.
But there were times she sided with law enforcement and the Trump administration, and she was outspokenly pragmatic on her approach to the death penalty, frustrating its opponents. Most criminal justice reform proponents we spoke to praised Ginsburg for her record, in which she was typically skeptical about the government wielding its power unfairly against defendants and prisoners. The Marshall Project reached out to a range of court-watchers, scholars and prisoners’ rights advocates to ask about Ginsburg’s legacy in these areas. Her record on issues of criminal justice and race is less examined-and less consistent. In the days since Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died at the age of 87, tributes have tended to focus on her work championing gender equity and reproductive rights.
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