502us2$26I 01-22-99 08:32:58 PAGES OPINPGT
404
RUFO v. INMATES OF SUFFOLK COUNTY JAIL Stevens, J., dissenting
fact, in this action it is apparent that the two overriding purposes that informed both the District Court’s interim remedy and respondents’ negotiations were the prohibition against double celling and the closing of the old jail. The plan that was ultimately accepted, as well as the terms of the consent decree entered in 1979, were designed to serve these two purposes. The consent decree incorporated all the details of the agreed upon architectural program. A recital in the decree refers to the program as “both constitutionally adequate and constitutionally required.” 3 That recital, of course, does not indicate that either the court or the parties thought that every detail of the settlement—or, indeed, any of its specific provisions—was “constitutionally required.” An adequate remedy was constitutionally required, and the parties and the court were satisfied that this program was constitutionally adequate. But that is not a basis for assuming that the parties believed that any provision of the decree, including the prohibition against double celling, was constitutionally required.4 3 The relevant passage reads in full: “And whereas all parties agree that for the purposes of this litigation the Suffolk County Detention Center, Charles Street Facility, Architectural Program which is attached and, as modified in paragraph 3 below, incorporated in this decree, sets forth a program which is both constitutionally adequate and constitutionally required.” App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 90–954, p. 16a. 4 Consider, for example, the following provisions of the decree: “(d) The paragraph headed ‘A.1.a. Lobby/reception’ on page 8 is changed by increasing the number of visitor lockers to one-hundred (100) and the tenth sentence in that paragraph is changed to read: ‘Lobby should include public telephones, drinking fountain, vending machines and bulletin boards.’ . . . . . “( j) The following paragraph shall be added to page 37: ‘Inmate laundry rooms shall be located to permit convenient access and staff supervision. Room placement and the number of laundry rooms required shall be resolved during the design phase. Each inmate laundry
