For high court: rights of states vs. rights of disabled

In 1990, when Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, lawmakers hailed the new civil rights statute as a means to help those with physical or other challenges more fully participate in mainstream American life.

It would change the national landscape with wheelchair ramps, specially equipped restrooms, and convenient parking spaces. Most important, the ADA was designed to change people's thinking, by making equal access both a national goal and the law of the land.

But just how broad and sweeping is the ADA? And to what extent do its protections embrace state prison inmates? Those questions are at the center of a case set for oral argument at the US Supreme Court Wednesday.

They are questions that will once again highlight an intense debate among the justices over the proper constitutional balance between national power and state power. And it may offer a preview of what is to become of the revival of states' rights issues now that the high court is under Chief Justice John Roberts.

At issue is a 1999 lawsuit filed against the Georgia state prison system by Tony Goodman, a paraplegic inmate who says he is entitled to $1.2 million for mental suffering and punitive damages for alleged violations of the ADA during the first four years of his 35-year prison term.

In Goodman v. Georgia, the justices must decide whether such suits are barred because of constitutional guarantees of state sovereignty - or whether Congress in the ADA properly overcame that constitutional barrier in order to authorize federal lawsuits seeking money damages from states.

"The legislative history of the ADA ... was concerned primarily with integrating persons with disabilities into the economic and social mainstream of American life," says Assistant Attorney General David Langford, in his brief for Georgia. That is "the polar opposite of the prison inmate, who is by definition removed from society's mainstream."

Georgia officials say it will become increasingly difficult to run a prison if some inmates are empowered to sue for equal access to every program, service, or activity. Such inmates may file suit in state court or seek a federal injunction to change prison conditions, but Congress does not possess the power to authorize Georgia inmates to use a federal law to sue the state for money damages, they say.

Mr. Goodman's lawyer, Yale Law School Prof. Drew Days III, argues in his brief that Congress has the power to extend the reach of the ADA inside state prisons. It is particularly so, Professor Days says, when the state's conduct violates not only the terms of the antidiscrimination law but also principles of the Constitution itself.

The Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments, the 14th Amendment's due process clause, and other guarantees within the Bill of Rights require states to provide "reasonable accommodations for inmates' disabilities in some circumstances," Days writes.

The Goodman case is important because it arises at a time when the high court's revival of states' rights appears to be at a crossroads. From 1996 to 2003, the court's conservative wing decided a string of cases by 5-4 votes that sharply cut back Congress's ability to pass laws authorizing private citizens to sue state governments for money damages.

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