Remedying constitutional violations lets judges impose detailed policy on state institutions.

Evidence

In James v. Wallace (1974), for example, a federal district court ruled that confinement in certain Alabama prisons—which were plagued by overcrowding, violence, and grossly inadequate health care— violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishments.> To remedy the constitutional violation, Judge Frank Johnson ordered extensive reforms in the prisons, requiring substantially increased state expenditures, and established his own guidelines for prison operations. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2717

Categorization

• XREF: Classic entry point to the judicial-remedies literature (Chayes’s ‘The Role of the Judge in Public Law Litigation’) and to structural-injunction debates. — connects to: Judges make policy under constraints unique among government branches. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 91
• SEED: Angle: ‘Who Runs Alabama’s Prisons?’ — how a single district judge’s remedial decree outsourced state policy to a courtroom.