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Electronic Control Weapons: Stun Mode Cases

     A pre-trial detainee at a county jail was deemed a suicide risk after she said her "life was over." She was required to remove her clothing and don a suicide prevention suit. Two female deputies accompanied her to a cell to carry out the clothing change. They said she was noncompliant, so two male deputies were summoned to assist. She was ultimately pinned down on the floor and told that if she continued to resist the changing of her clothing, a Taser would be used. After a Taser was used in the stun mode for 5 seconds, she straightened her arms so her clothing could be removed. The excessive force claim was analyzed under a Fourteenth Amendment due process "shocks the conscience" standard. There were disputed facts mandating that the defendants not be granted summary judgment as, despite their testimony that she was flailing and actively resisting, a video of the incident did not appear to show that and did not contradict her statement that she was compliant and did not push anyone's hands away. At the time the Taser was used, she was largely blocked from view by one of the deputies while lying on the floor, so that it was impossible from the video to determine whether she actively resisted efforts to remove her clothing before the Taser was applied to her shoulder. "Viewing these facts in the light most favorable to plaintiff, she was perhaps uncooperative but not dangerous or threatening, and a question of fact therefore remains as to whether the use of the Taser was excessive." Smith v. County of Isabella, #2:12-cv-11333, 2013 U.S. Dist. Lexis 122419 (E.D. Mich.).

Medical Care

     A prisoner's lawsuit seeking injunctive relief for alleged deliberate indifference to his personal serious medical needs (specifically treatment for a shoulder injury from prior gunshot wounds and an old sports knee injury) was not barred by the fact that there was a pending class action concerning injunctive relief on medical care in California prisons. The class action sought only systemic reform and a consent decree in that case required the implementation of certain conditions as well as the reduction of the statewide prison population, and did not cover claims concerning individualized medical care. While further proceedings were ordered, the claim might be moot, in light of the fact that the prisoner had been transferred to a new facility. Pride v. Correa, #10-56036, 719 F.3d 1130 (9th Cir. 2013).

Medical Care: Dental

     A detainee who agreed to civil commitment as a sexually violent person was seen by a dentist who found 12 cavities in his teeth. They got worse and he experienced pain, but no follow-up appointment occurred. Treatment was greatly delayed, with no treatment for over a year and with two of the teeth not being worked on for 5 years. A federal appeals court found that these allegations adequately stated a claim for violation of the detainee's rights. Claims could be pursued against a dental hygienist who discouraged him from being a "pest" by insisting on an appointment, and against a dentist who allegedly prescribed pain medication that she knew the plaintiff could not take, as well as against a medical doctor who was allegedly aware of the problem but took no action, Smego v. Mitchell, #11-2897, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 14619 (7th Cir.).

Prison Litigation Reform Act: Exhaustion of Remedies

     A paraplegic prisoner confined to a wheelchair sued, asserting claims for 14 alleged incidents of excessive force against him, denial of needed medical treatment, and the confiscation of his wheelchair, which was then replaced with one that lacked needed leg rests. He claimed that, with the supplied wheelchair, he was unable to shower or brush his teeth and sometimes was left lying in his own excrement for day. A federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of most of these claims for failure to exhaust administrative remedies by filing and pursuing grievances, as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The trial judge was entitled to make a factual determination without the participation of a jury that the plaintiff was aware of the prison's grievance procedure and was able to access it. The appeals court found, however, that the prisoner did adequately exhaust administrative remedies as to two specific incidents. While he did not appeal his grievances concerning those two incidents, no appeal was available because no actual decision on the grievances concerning those incidents was received. Small v. Whittick, #11-2378, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 17739 (3rd Cir.).

Prison Litigation Reform Act: "Three Strikes Rule"

    A prisoner filed a lawsuit against a health care service and five medical professionals claiming that they were deliberately indifferent to his chronic serious medical conditions of diabetes and Hepatitis C, and that this had caused the need for partial amputation of his feet and visual impairment. He argued that this deliberate indifference was ongoing, subjecting him to a risk of coma, death, or further amputations. While he had filed three previous lawsuits dismissed as frivolous, he was not precluded from proceeding as a pauper on the current lawsuit under the "three strikes" rule of the Prison Litigation Reform Act because his claims of an ongoing risk of additional harm fell within the "imminent danger" exception to that rule. Vandiver v. Prison Health Servs., Inc. #11-1959, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 17028, 2013 Fed App. 234P (6th Cir.).

Prisoner Assault: By Officer

     A prisoner claimed that a correctional officer used excessive force against him, assaulting him for approximately two minutes and knocking his head against a gate before moving him to a holding cell. A federal appeals court held that the officer was entitled to qualified immunity because the prisoner suffered no more than de minimus (minimal) injuries, if that, and combined with the lack of extraordinary circumstances, this did not violate any clearly established Eighth Amendment right in the Fourth Circuit in 2007, the date of the incident. Hill v. Crum, #12-6705, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 16848 (4th Cir.). Editor's Note: The requirement of more than de minimus injury was rejected after the date of this incident by the U.S. Supreme Court in Wilkins v. Gaddy, #08-10914, 130 S, Ct. 1175 (2010).

Prisoner Suicide

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

     An immigration detainee housed in a county jail under a contract with the federal government used her socks to strangle herself to death in her cell after eight days of incarceration. A federal appeals court found that there was evidence that could show that one employee of a private firm providing medical services at the jail had been aware of the detainee's depressed condition and suicidal thoughts, but failed to take any steps to prevent her from killing herself. The summary judgment on claims against the county, the sheriff, the jail's director, and two other employees of the medical firm was upheld. Belbachir v. McHenry Cnty., #13-1002, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 16665 (7th Cir.).

Religion

     An inmate decided to adopt a "spiritual name" of Prince Atum-Ra Uhuru Mutawakkil, with Atum-Ra being an Egyptian deity representing a fusion of the gods Atum and Ra; uhuru being the Swahili word for freedom, and al-Mutawakkil being an Abbasid caliph who once ruled in Samarra. He did not explain his use of the term "Prince," and did not claim the name was selected because of his membership in a specific religion. A federal appeals court rejected a claim that the failure to deliver mail to him addressed only with his new chosen name violated his right to either equal protection of law or religious freedom. The state's policy was only to deliver mail addressed to the prisoner under his original name or the original named together with a second name, but not mail addressed to the new name only. The court found that this did not "substantially burden" his religious freedom. The prisoner had failed, the court noted, to seek a formal legal name change in state court. Mutawakkil v. Huibregtse, #12-3121, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 17493 (7th Cir.).17188

    An atheist prisoner, in an earlier case, had prevailed on his claim that his request to form an atheist prison study group should be treated as a request for a "religious" group rather than a nonreligious activity group. Kaufman v. McCaughtry, #04-1914, 419 F.3d 678, 683-84 (7th Cir. 2005). When he was later transferred to a new facility, he again encountered resistance to his request to form an atheist group. He sued over that as well as denial of his request to wear a "knowledge thought ring" (which he said was a religious symbol), and the prison's failure to make atheist books he donated available in the prison library. The federal appeals court vacated a trial court ruling that the prison supplied a legitimate secular reason for denying the group recognition because only two prisoners were believed to have an interest in it. It upheld the determination that prohibiting the ring did not impose a substantial burden on religious freedom, and that there was no evidence that the defendants had any responsibility for losing the donated boos, or that there was anything more than negligence, insufficient for a federal civil rights claim. Kaufman v. Pugh, #13-1009, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 16999 (7th Cir.).

  Therapeutic Programs

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

     An atheist parolee was entitled to compensatory damages when the court found that his First Amendment rights to religious freedom were violated when his parole was revoked because he refused to participate in a residential drug treatment program that contained a requirement that he acknowledge the existence of a higher power. He suffered the injury of imprisonment as a result, and should have been granted a new trial after a jury awarded him nothing. A claim for injunctive relief was not moot as there appeared to have been no steps taken to provide an alternative non-religious program. Hazle v. Crofoot, #11-15354, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 17663 (9th Cir.).

•Return to the Contents menu.

     Educational Programs: "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Correctional Education," by Lois M. Davis, Robert Bozick, Jennifer L. Steele, Jessica Saunders, and Jeremy N.V. Miles, RAND Corporation sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (2013).

     Private Prisons: "Cost Analysis of Public and Contractor-Operated Prisons," by Dr. Simon Hakim and Dr. Erwin A, Blackstone, Temple University Center for Competitive Government (April 29, 2013).

     Statistics: Mortality in Local Jails and State Prisons, 2000-2011 - Statistical Tables.

Reference:

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

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