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False Imprisonment

     A man who was sentenced to an alcohol treatment program on a DUI conviction was mistakenly held instead in jail for a month before the error in interpreting the sentencing order was discovered. He sued a number of correctional employees for alleged violations of his Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments rights in falsely imprisoning him. The trial court denied the defendants' motions for qualified immunity. The appeals court found that the trial judge erred by failing to make a detailed analysis of whether each defendant was entitled to qualified immunity on each of the constitutional claims and therefore ordered further proceedings. Handt v. Lynch, #11-1829, 681 F.3d 939 (8th Cir. 2012).

First Amendment

     Correctional employees' actions in refusing to let prisoners receive five books that a non-profit corporation wished to distribute to them did not violate the First Amendment or due process. The books were properly banned as unacceptable based on discussions of racial conflicts in prisons and graphic descriptions of prison rape. The plaintiff failed to show that the policy under which these books were barred had no reasonable relationship to legitimate governmental objectives. Prison Legal News v. Livingston, #11-40128, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 11108 (5th Cir.).

     Editor's note: The books rejected were Prison Masculinities, Don Sabo, et al., eds., (2001); The Perpetual Prison Machine: How America Profits from Crime, Joel Dyer (1999); Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis, Christian Parenti (2000); Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, George Jackson (1970); and Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System, Silja J.A. Talvi (2007).

Medical Care

     A surgeon's misdiagnosis that a prisoner had "no definite hernia" was merely negligence, and insufficient to support a constitutional claim. The prisoner stated a valid claim for deliberate indifference, however, against another doctor who confirmed that the prisoner had a hernia requiring surgery, but failed to properly request a referral for the surgery in a timely fashion and, without explanation, canceled a second referral request, resulting in a seven-month delay in treatment. Wilhelm v. Rotman, #11-16335, 680 F.3d 1113 (9th Cir. 2012).

     When a prisoner was examined by a prison doctor and a nurse, complaining of a swollen eye and a headache, they recommended, respectively, a warm compress and the taking of Tylenol. After his release, the prisoner discovered that the swollen eye was because of a rare form of bone cancer. The misdiagnosis by the medical personnel could not support a federal civil rights claim. The doctor only had one brief contact with the prisoner, and there nurse did refer him to an optometrist. "(N)either negligent medical care, nor the delay in providing medical care, can rise to the level of a constitutional violation absent specific allegations of sufficiently harmful acts or omissions reflecting deliberate indifference." Reilly v. Vadlamudi, #11-1252, 680 F.3d 617 (6th Cir. 2012).

Medical Care: Dental

     A group of detainees and prisoners in a county jail were properly certified as a class to assert claims for deliberate indifference to their dental medical needs. Two other judges had previously declined to certify a class action on similar claims by other groups of plaintiffs. The principles of judicial "comity" only required the third judge to give respectful attention to the rulings of the other judges, but he was not precluded from ruling differently. Smentek v. Dart, #11-3261, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 12325 (7th Cir.).

Parole

     The U.S. Supreme Court held that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for juvenile murderers violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling came in two consolidated cases of juveniles given such sentences after being convicted of murder at the age of 14. Miller v. Alabama, #10-9646, 2012 U.S. Lexis 4877.

Prison Litigation Reform Act: Exhaustion of Remedies

     A prisoner's lawsuit concerning inadequate medical care, unlawful retaliation, and harassment was dismissed for allegedly failing to properly exhaust available administrative remedies. This was based on prison officials' argument that his grievances could have been denied on the basis of his failure to comply with mandatory time limits or complete the grievance process, procedural issues. In fact, however, three of his grievances for inadequate medical care were denied on their merits, thereby constituting exhaustion of the available process for them. Hammett v. Cofield, #11-2937, 681 F.3d 945 (8th Cir. 2012).

Prison Litigation Reform Act: Injunctive Relief

     A trial judge ruled that there was a due process liberty interest in not being transferred to a "supermax" facility because the conditions there constituted an atypical and significant hardship on those incarcerated there. The judge entered an injunctive order mandating specific procedures before a prisoner could be sent there, including those the defendants had adopted for reviewing proposed transfers. The scope and specificity of the injunctive order violated the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3626(a)(1)(A) by going further than required to remedy the constitutional violations found and by failing to use the "least intrusive means" of correcting the violations. The injunction denied prison administrators significant administrative discretion and flexibility, which was improper. Westefer v. Neal, #10–2957, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 11386 (7th Cir.).

Prisoner Transportation

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

     An inmate was thrown from his seat and injured while being transported to a medical facility in shackles on a bus that was not equipped with seat belts. The failure to provide such seat belts, standing alone, does not violate the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendments. Providing such seat belts in vehicles transporting prisoners could involve security and safety concerns, even if it is reasonable to provide them in vehicles transporting the general public. A correctional facility could withhold providing seatbelts for legitimate penological reasons without an intent to punish. The plaintiff also failed to show that the defendants knew of, yet disregarded, an excessive risk to prisoner safety. Jabbar v. Fischer, #11–3765, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 12747 (2nd Cir.).

Religion

     A prisoner who belonged to the Celtic Druid religion asserted that prison officials violated his right to religious freedom because they denied him permission to possess a religious medallion a prison chaplain had said he could order. The prison had a legitimate rule barring medallions costing over a certain amount or which were non-conforming. The expensive and mirrored medallion he ordered violated the rule. The prisoner failed to show that the policy was enforced in a discriminatory manner. McFaul v. Valenzuela, #11-10218, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 12283 (5th Cir.).

•Return to the Contents menu.

     DNA: "Post-Conviction DNA Testing and Wrongful Conviction," by John Roman, Kelly Walsh, Pamela Lachman, and Jennifer Yahner (June 2012).

     Elderly Prisoners: "At America's Expense: The Mass Incarceration of the Elderly," by the ACLU (June 2012).

     Sentencing Issues: "Time Served: The High Cost, Low Return of Longer Prison Terms," by the Pew Center on the States (June 2012).

Reference:

     • Abbreviations of Law Reports, laws and agencies used in our publications.

     • AELE's list of recently-noted jail and prisoner law resources.