Click here for further information about all AELE Seminars.

---

 Search the Case Law Digest

     Some of the case digests do not have a link to the full opinion.

• Cases that have a Lexis or Westlaw citation can be retrieved via Internet. Westlaw charges a fee.
• Most Federal District Court opinions can be accessed via PACER. Registration required. Opinions are usually free; other documents are 8¢ per page.
• Access to cases linked to www.findlaw.com may require registration, which is free.

Diet

     Isolated incidents in which prisoners are deprived of a meal do not amount to a violation of constitutional rights, but a prisoner stated a potentially viable claim when he alleged that he received meals which were solely or largely peanut butter sandwiches for extended periods during lockdown, despite the fact that he had an allergy to peanut butter and suffered an allergic reaction. Ybarra v. Meador, #10-40628, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 11405 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).

Medical Care

     An immigration detainee claimed that medical personnel failed to give him pain medication that he was prescribed after hand surgery, inhibiting his rehabilitation and causing permanent injury to his hand. Rejecting this claim, the appeals court noted that the medication had to be taken with food, and that the detainee failed to benefit from the medical treatment provided because he refused to eat the food he was dissatisfied with. His reason for doing so was that he wanted halal meals containing meat, for religious reasons, but he was provided with vegetarian meals that did not violate his right to religious freedom. Any denial of pain medication was based on his refusal to eat. Adekoya v. Chertoff, #11-1990, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 12685 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).

     Editor's Note: As an immigration detainee, the plaintiff was entitled to the same protections as a pretrial detainee, those provided by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In this case, the court found that the medical care provided did not constitute punishment that violated due process.

     A federal prisoner had a number of serious medical conditions, including a history of epilepsy, non-insulin dependent diabetes, disc herniation surgery, a history of head trauma with loss of consciousness causing seizures, and cardiac catheterization, as well as allergies to a number of antibiotics. He claimed that medical personnel at a facility violated his rights by placing him on a different pain medication than he had previously been prescribed by his private physicians and neurosurgeons without consulting them. The appeals court found that this did not amount to deliberate indifference to a serious medical need. Albert v. Yost, #11-1453, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 12401 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).

Medical Records

****Editor's Case Alert****

     An HIV-positive Hepatitis-B infected inmate's claim that the disclosure of his medical records to another prisoner violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy was improperly dismissed as frivolous. The facts alleged were sufficient, if true, to prove that the defendants committed an intentional violation of his constitutional rights or fostered "an atmosphere of disclosure with deliberate indifference." Alfred v. Corr. Corp. of Am., #09-30614,2011 U.S. App. Lexis 11658 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).

Prison and Jail Conditions: General

     Summary judgment was properly entered against a prisoner in his lawsuit over his conditions of confinement. While there were indeed feces on the wall of his cell, the plaintiff prisoner was the one who put it there, and correctional employees took necessary measures to see to it that both the prisoner and his cell were cleaned after the mess was created. There was no evidence that the prisoner was denied any of life's basic necessities. Banks v. Mozingo, #10-2259, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 7899 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).

Prisoner Assault: By Officers

     A prisoner was assisting law enforcement in an investigation into drug trafficking within a county prison. While in protective custody for his own safety, he was found dead in his cell. While prison authorities maintained that he committed suicide, the executors of his estate filed a lawsuit claiming that he had been killed by prison guards because of his cooperation with the investigation. A federal appeals court ruled that, regardless of whether that was true, the plaintiffs could not establish supervisory liability on the part of defendant prison officials, since they had not alleged that they had any personal knowledge of threats to the prisoner and acted with deliberate indifference to those threats. Dock v. Rush, #10-4458, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 12877 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).

     Video recordings of two cell extractions showed that correctional officers used only that force needed in light of the prisoner's refusal to comply with orders, and that the prisoner was not injured. His excessive force claim was therefore rejected. Adderly v. Ferrier, #10-3636, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 4904 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).

Prisoner Discipline

     A prisoner could not prevail on his due process challenge to discipline based on allegedly false misbehavior reports filed by corrections officers when nothing indicated that he was denied a fair opportunity to dispute the charges, and the disciplinary decision itself had "some basis" in reliable evidence. Livingston v. Kelly, #10-2022, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 10716 (2nd Cir.).

Retaliation

     A prisoner was entitled to proceed with his claim that he was transferred to a restricted housing unit by a captain in retaliation for his First Amendment-protected activity of filing a grievance concerning a disciplinary charge the captain filed against him. There was evidence that the captain justified the transfer by claiming to have information that the prisoner was somehow responsible for a fight between other prisoners, but his failure to similarly transfer two prisoners known to have been involved in the fight supported the claim of a retaliatory motive. Washington-El v. DiGuglielmo, #10-2462, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 5857 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).

Smoking

     A prisoner failed to show that by smoking in his housing unit correctional employees acted with deliberate indifference to any existing serious medical condition of which they had been made aware. Further proceedings were ordered, however, on the prisoner's claim that such smoking exposed him to an unreasonable risk of future harm. All claims against a prison doctor concerning the smoking were properly rejected, in the absence of any evidence that the prisoner had complained to him about it. Brown v. DiGuglielmo, #09-3494, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 5752 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).

•Return to the Contents menu.

Administrative Segregation:

• "Is 'Adaptation' the Right Question? Addressing the Larger Context of Administrative Segregation.,"  by Lorna A. Rhodes and David Lovell. (NIC June 21, 2011).

Drugs:

• "Drug Offenders in Prison Backgrounder - February 2011," Minnesota Department of Corrections.-

Environmental:

• "The Greening of Corrections: Creating a Sustainable System," (NIC. March, 2011).

Mental Health:

• "One Year Longitudinal Study of the Psychological Effects of Administrative Segregation: Abstract and Summary" by Maureen L. O'Keefe, Kelli J. Klebe, Alysha Stucker, Kristin Sturm, and William Leggett, Corrections and Mental Health (NIC June 21, 2011).

Supermax Facilities:

• "The Devil is in the Details: Examining Conditions of Confinement in Studies of Supermax Facilities," by Ann Marie Rocheleau (NIC June 21, 2011).

Reference:

•      • Abbreviations of Law Reports, laws and agencies used in our publications.
•      • AELE's list of recently-noted jail and prisoner law resources.