A federal appeals court on Friday erased a lower court ruling that had barred the administration from keeping transgender female prisoners in men’s prisons.
In a complicated ruling, the judges said the prisoners didn’t prove a viable claim under the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel punishment.
They said the prisoners can, however, reargue their cases below, citing specific reasons why they, individually, could be at risk of harm if they were required to remain in a men’s facility.
“Because we cannot affirm the district court’s conclusion that plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their Eighth Amendment claim and irreparable harm, we must vacate the preliminary injunctions and remand for further consideration,” wrote Judge Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee.
She was joined by Judge Sri Srinivasan, another Obama appointee.
Judge Raymond Randolph, a George H.W. Bush appointee, agreed that the lower court ruling couldn’t stand. But he said the entire case should have been set aside and the prisoners should have brought their complaints through the administrative process instead of the courts.
President Trump issued an executive order on Inauguration Day directing the Justice Department not to place people who were born male in women’s prisons.
Eighteen transgender women who were about to be shifted back to men’s prisons sued.
The court on Friday said thousands of transgender women prisoners are in the federal system but only a tiny fraction are in the Bureau of Prisons’ female facilities.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, had issued an injunction blocking a transfer from female prisons.
He had found the prisoners faced an unconstitutional risk of harm if they were placed in men’s facilities.
But lawyers for the prisoners didn’t defend that finding to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, leaving the three-judge panel to reject the categorical injunction.
Instead, the prisoners argued their individual situations were so risky that they deserved protection.
The appeals court said that is a fact-based question that Judge Lamberth didn’t address fully. They remanded the case to him for more argument.
