"[T]HE CONSTITUTION DOES NOT MANDATE COMFORTABLE PRISONS"-----THE MAJORITY IN RHODES v. CHAPMAN 452 U.S.337 (1981) By William Thorpe

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The title to this work is quoted from a "declaration" by the Supreme Court of The United States in 1981.From a law suit filed by Prisoners held at the SOUTHERN OHIO CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, a Maximum Security Prison at Lucasville, Ohio, claiming that the double celling of the tiny cell space, meaning having two prisoners share a small space of 63 square feet, violated the Eighth Amendment to The Constitution, prohibition against CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT. My focus with this work isn't to critique that 1981 declaration of the Supreme Court, that "the Constitution does not mandate comfortable prisons", but instead to use it to show that as much as we say that the Social Contract or in this case Virginia Society is based on the RULE OF LAW and it doesn't get anymore lawful than the CONSTITUTION. The reality is we are not. The "we are not" aspect isn't that mere and patently simple characterization of the predisposition to violate. Instead it reveals and exposes, that there is an inherent corrupt value in structure. Whether at the conceptual and idea stage to its realization, its negation or that which will undermine it as corruption is there with it. Secondly, (and this affirms and proves the existence of the corrupt value). LAW is an aspirational frame work from which we leverage and critique that which will enable our affirmation of the fundamental and primary BUSINESS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE. In other words, law as Constituted Aspiration, is guide or theory, notwithstanding a salute to BLACK LETTER LAW, if the existence of a status quo and privilege has thought us anything, it has imparted that, that eponymous "norm", is just that, contextually idealistic. I BEGIN: The Constitution of The United States, affirms and prohibits certain concepts. Which we generally refer to as "Rights. "Then it plays the sophist gimmick of other concepts or Rights are left to the People. Notwithstanding the fact that the Constitution is the Supreme Law. Or whatever conceptual framework emanating from it, is defacto fiat, still and despite that fact it squares the circle with The People are sole possessors of whatever the a priori Constitution in its omnipotent Supremacy, is paradoxically silent on. When the Supreme Court declared that the Constitution doesn't mandate comfortable prisons, in 1981 as response to Ohio Prisoner's assertion that subjecting them to imprisonment in an insufferably tiny space, what those Jurist or Judges conveniently didn't say is, nor does the Constitution say Prisoners should be imprisoned under those conditions either. The point is this, ever since the Supreme Court made that declaration, those words have become Law, without any elected legislator saying aye or nay to it. Those words have been used in approximately 1,708 law suits in the 4th Circuit, which the Commonwealth of Virginia is under its jurisdiction. Those words just as all our words comprehensively have a bias, a bias which in the context of a Social Contract, must be unambiguously stated, so it can defend itself. Because as Judge MARSHALL stated in dissent to what his colleagues had done in the RHODES case: "With the rising crime rates of recent years, there has been an alarming tendency towards a simplistic penological philosophy that if we lock the prison doors and throw away the keys, our streets will somehow be safe". People, Judge Thurgood Marshall, had this insight in 1981.Forty-Five years ago ! and here we are in 2026 with Virginia Republicans, who are bereft and bankrupt of what it even means to confront their very own structural corrupt values, regurgitating, the same tired noises against Governor Spanberger, who at least is confronting it.

Law as I've indicated is the Constituted Aspirations of The People. Meaning it exist for the People. Created by the People. Emerging as a contemporaneous symbiosis of Who Are the People with what segment of the People and it's percentage are commanding the status quo presumptive benefit of privilege. This presumptive benefit of privilege, is the materialization of that inherent structural corrupt-value in its anticipatory existence, for the accountability-function of governance, which in principle is energized by the People. However, when the People for any number of reasons and factors are, incapable, unwilling and unable to energize that accountability-function of governance, then, the existing vacuum is filled with and by that presumptive benefit of privilege or in other words, an ad hoc stamp on virtually the very intention of the Constituted Aspirations of Law. Yes its easy then to simply describe the consequence or its result as its crass violation, which it still is. But what is actually occurring (and it is revealing that it appears initially in issues with the Justice Infrastructure and the subsequent Imprisonment Schemes) is an attack, at times consciously and deliberate, but for the most past unconsciously on the expression-medium or idea of the constitution of aspirations, then lastly its purpose or objective. As I initially stated my intention with this work, isn't to indulge in the low hanging fruit of critiquing the ruling of the Supreme Court in RHODES v. CHAPMAN 452 U.S 337, but to show how whether intentionally or not, declarations or speculations by those embodying Governmental functions, which Judges are, negate the very basis of their relative authority as it exist as the fundamental undergirding PROCESS, along with the unforeseen consequence inexorability. What this points to isn't the fact that for example the RHODES majority, mocked the very Constitution they have its authority of defending by interpreting actions in its name are actually such, with their "The Constitution does not mandate comfortable prisons". But what it instead does is (and here is its relevancy to our work of reforming the imprisonment scheme in Virginia), it reminds and reinforces the demand for actual political involvement and activity by The People. Because yes robbed Jurist can render their "declarations", usurping the ayes and nays of elected legislators, but the People with their Speech are the Supreme and Final arbiters of what is law and whether its formulation is representative of their Constituted Aspirations. What this means for the Virginia Family, Ally and Friend of the Virginia Prisoner, is simple and clear cut. A more deliberate, exact, purposeful and organized focus and involvement in Virginia politics. Involvement means developing, supporting and maintaining a level off "SPEECH", that is capable of recognizing that which is specious. When we are being manipulated and fed gimminks and gambits, instead of the accountability-function of governance. Those Ohio Prisoners in 1981, behaved even more responsibly than the relatively non-imprisoned average Ohio citizen, with their simple claim, that double-celling two men in a cramped and tiny cell was a violation of the eighth amendment to the Constitution's prohibition against Cruel and Unusual Punishment. Instead, what we have come to learn is, in the past forty five years since the Supreme Court ignominiously and insidiously reframed and re-characterized, the Ohio Prisoners cruel and unusual punishment allegation and its insinuation of STATE CREATED DANGER into the snide and snarky, "comfortable prisons", thousands of Prisoners who were not sent to Prison to die, whether its prisoner on prisoner violence, or contracting any number of diseases due to the nature of the confinement, have. We see the same thing in Virginia and its time our Speech indicted it.

By William Thorpe

William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit and if you feel any kinda way about this work contact me by Securus email using the Texas prison number #2261982 .