US Supreme Court declines to hear inmate case on civil death

Posted on March 9, 2020
The Roberts Court, November 30, 2018. Seated, from left to right: Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Samuel A. Alito. Standing, from left to right: Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Brett M. Kavanaugh. Photograph by Fred Schilling, Supreme Court Curator’s Office.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of a Rhode Island prison inmate who had challenged the state’s law that considers him “civilly dead.”

Dana Gallop is serving two life sentences for fatally shooting a rival gang member outside a Providence nightclub in 2008.

He was attacked in 2010 by another inmate and sued the state Department of Corrections, saying guards did not do anything to stop the attack.

The state Supreme Court ruled that Gallop can’t sue because under a 1909 state law he is considered dead with respect to property rights, marriage and other civil rights.

Gallop’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court challenged the constitutionality of that law.

 

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