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Prisoners with AIDS: Constitutionality and Statutory Rights Implicated in Family Visitation Programs

NCJ Number
133983
Journal
Boston College Law Review Volume: 31 Issue: 4 Dated: (July 1990) Pages: 967-1025
Author(s)
S Goldstein
Date Published
1990
Length
59 pages
Annotation
Focusing on the context of family visitation programs, this note examines the constitutional and statutory issues raised by differing treatments accorded to inmates with AIDS and their families.
Abstract
The note includes an overview of both the traditional judicial deference to prison officials and the constitutional rights of prisoners, including marital privacy, and addresses several issues: the standards of judicial review that courts have applied to substantive due process and equal protection claims of prisoners under the fourteenth amendment; the impact of AIDS on the constitutional and statutory rights of prisoners; the application of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to prisoners with AIDS; the Doe court's (New York Court of Appeals) minimum scrutiny analysis and its refusal to find an infringement of constitutional rights of AIDS-infected inmates or their families; a strict scrutiny standard for courts in reviewing regulations that implicate the fundamental right to marital privacy and equal protection under the law; the failure of the Doe court to apply the Rehabilitation Act to the AIDS-infected prisoner's claim of discrimination; and the need for judicial intervention, rather than deference, in the face of prison regulations that infringe upon constitutional and statutory rights of prisoners. The note concludes that the State's denial of an AIDS-infected prisoner's participation in conjugal visits solely on the basis of AIDS is an impermissible infringement upon the constitutional and statutory rights of that individual. 447 footnotes

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