Is it cruel and unusual to subject an incarcerated person to sleep deprivation for years? That's a question it has taken federal courts more than a decade to answer.
On March 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reinstated Texas inmate Michael Garrett's 11-year-long-and-still-running lawsuit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, finding that a lower district court had repeatedly and incorrectly subjected him to a higher bar than it should have to prove that being afforded less than four hours of sleep a night violated his constitutional rights.
