42
Thomas, J., dissenting
II
To state a claim under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, a party must prove not only that the challenged conduct was both cruel and unusual, but also that it constitutes punishment. The text and history of the Eighth Amendment, together with pre-Estelle precedent, raise substantial doubts in my mind that the Eighth Amendment proscribes a prison deprivation that is not inflicted as part of a sentence. And Estelle itself has not dispelled these doubts. Were the issue squarely presented, therefore, I might vote to overrule Estelle. I need not make that decision today, however, because this case is not a straightforward application of Estelle. It is, instead, an extension.
In Hudson, the Court extended Estelle to cases in which the prisoner has suffered only minor injuries; here, it extends Estelle to cases in which there has been no injury at all.3 Because I seriously doubt that Estelle was correctly decided, I decline to join the Court's holding. Stare decisis may call for hesitation in overruling a dubious precedent, but it does not demand that such a precedent be expanded to its outer limits. I would draw the line at actual, serious injuries and reject the claim that exposure to the risk of injury can violate the Eighth Amendment.
Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
3 None of our prior decisions, including the three that are cited by the Court today, see ante, at 33, held that the mere threat of injury can violate the Eighth Amendment. In Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678 (1978), the defendants challenged the district court's remedy; they did not dispute the court's conclusion that "conditions in [the] prisons . . . constituted cruel and unusual punishment." Id., at 685. Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U. S. 307 (1982), involved the liberty interests (under the Due Process Clause) of an involuntarily committed mentally retarded person, and DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, 489 U. S. 189 (1989), involved the due process rights of a child who had been beaten by his father in the home.
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