James Saylor v. Rob Jeffreys, Director, Nebraska Department of Correctional Services

The Eighth Circuit held that it is “lawful” to keep Petitioner in solitary confinement because he has post-traumatic stress disorder. The question is^ Whether it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and/or the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to keep a prisoner in prolonged solitary confinement because he has serious mental illness.

Whether conflict between the decision of the Eighth Circuit in this case and decisions of the Third and Fourth Circuits concerning the lawfulness of prolonged solitary confinement, both as to prisoners with serious mental illness and generally, constitutes a conflict between decisions of multiple United States courts of appeals on the same important matter that cannot be tolerated.

Whether the denial of a post-judgment Rule 59(e) motion to amend the complaint constitutes a “final judgment on the merits” for res judicata purposes, and if so, whether such precludes new facts which did not develop until a year after the first suit was dismissed from being the basis for a new suit.

Whether a prisoner with serious mental illness serving a life sentence, who has been held in solitary confinement for many years because she or he has serious mental illness, can be doomed to spend the rest of their life in solitary confinement simply because they lost a previous suit and now have no way to bring a new suit to challenge the conditions described.