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Access to Courts/Legal Info

     After a prisoner suing pro se was denied the right to proceed as a pauper because of his past record of filing numerous meritless or frivolous lawsuits in both state and federal court, the trial court entered an order restricting him from filing any more pro se lawsuits. The Supreme Court of Rhode Island vacated that order, finding that it violated the prisoner's constitutional right of access to the courts. Laurence v. R.I. Dep't of Corrections, #12-197, 68 A.3d 543, 2013 R.I. Lexis 112.

Employment Issues

     A prosecutor filed felony charges against a correctional officer who took his cell phone inside a facility in violation of departmental policies and Illinois law, making 30 calls from work. Another officer spread the news of this to fellow employees. A casework supervisor called the prosecutor, urging him to drop the charges and let the matter be handled in the employee disciplinary process. Internal affairs learned of this and investigated the supervisor, who was reprimanded and suspended for five days. He sued, claiming he was subjected to unlawful retaliation for protected speech. A federal appeals court upheld a ruling that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity from liability as no clearly established rights were violated. Further, the plaintiff had not proven his case as a matter of law. His speech was not constitutionally protected since the interests in maintaining workplace order and security outweighed the plaintiff's interests in expressing his opinion on a work-related prosecution. Volkman v. Ryker, #12-1778, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 24000 (7th Cir.).

Freedom of Information

     Two Pennsylvania newspapers sued seeking expanded access to prisoner executions. They asserted that various restrictions on access imposed by correctional officials violated the First Amendment right to report on matters of public interest. A settlement was reached allowing witnesses, such as reporters, to see and hear inside the execution chamber from the moment the prisoner enters until the time he or she is declared dead. The settlement serves the right of officials to turn off the sound system if the inmate attempts to make malicious or threatening remarks aimed at the witnesses. The Philadelphia Inquirer v. Wetzel, #12-cv-01817, U.S. Dist Ct. (M.D. Pa. Oct. 18, 2013).

Medical Care

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

     The family of a female arrestee who died while held in a cell in a police station without needed medical attention for over 24 hours was awarded $1 million in damages by a jury. According to the plaintiffs, the woman's lawyer and several family members repeatedly let officers know that she was seriously ill, and she herself informed them of this also. She was obese, diabetic, and had asthma. The jury found that a police practice of holding detainees in cells in police stations without medical attention for up to two days was unconstitutional. Ortiz v. the City of Chicago, #04-C-7423, U.S. Dist. Ct. (N.D. Ill. Nov. 4, 2013).

Prison Litigation Reform Act: Similar State Laws

     A California intermediate appeals court upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by an inmate complaining about the medical treatment he received from an optometrist under contract to provide services to prisoners. The prisoner failed to properly exhaust available administrative remedies and no acceptable excuse for that was provided. The court rejected the argument that the requirement to exhaust administrative remedies did not apply when the defendant was an independent contractor rather than a government employee. Parthemore v. Col, #C072611, 2013 Cal. App. Lexis 984.

Prisoner Assault: By Inmate

     A prisoner sought damages for injuries he received when he was attacked by another prisoner at a county detention facility. He claimed that the facility staff were negligent in classifying him and housing him with his assailant, and because they failed to release him in a timely manner. Overturning an award of damages, the Supreme Court of Tennessee found that the injuries that he received as a result of the delay in releasing him were not reasonably foreseeable. There had been no prior incident between the two prisoners. King v. Anderson County, #E2012-00386-SC-R11, 2013 Tenn. Lexis 989.

Prisoner Classification

     A prisoner stabbed a correctional officer in the chest with some wire from a fence. He was then transferred to a supermax unit and assigned to an incentive level program. He claimed that his placement there violated his constitutional rights, including due process and equal protection. The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that the complaint was properly dismissed as the prisoner failed to raise any valid constitutional issue. Waller v. Banks, #CV-11-403, 2013 Ark. 399, 2013 Ark. Lexis 476.

Prisoner Discipline

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

     The Kentucky Supreme Court found that a prisoner's disciplinary conviction was not supported by some evidence. The committee hearing the case relied entirely on information from confidential informants and there was no information about them or any evidence to show that they could be considered reliable, thus violating the prisoner's due process rights. Haney v. Thomas, #2011-SC-000453,406 S.W.3d 823, 2013 Ky. Lexis 369

Segregation: Administrative

     A Michigan prisoner was placed in administrative segregation for close to 13 years because he was considered an escape risk. He was serving a sentence from attempted escape as well as two years for being a felon in possession of a firearm, and a life sentence for murder. Most of that time, he was in a maximum security facility. He filed a lawsuit claiming that his statutory and First Amendment religious freedom rights had been violated while he was in segregation and that he was denied access to Christian worship services and kept in segregation without any meaningful review. While a federal appeals court agreed that no violation of his religious freedom rights had been shown, it also ruled that summary judgment for the defendants was improperly granted on a due process claim. There were disputed factual issues, including whether the four misconduct reports concerning his behavior over a ten year time period was sufficient to keep him in administrative detention or whether the "aging" escape history justified it. Selby v. Caruso, #13-1248, 734 F.3d 554 (6th Cir. 2013).

Strip Searches: Prisoners

     In a lawsuit claiming a violation of the Fourth Amendment because of strip searches of female detainees in D.C. facilities while awaiting presentment hearings in court, and claiming a violation of equal protection because male detainees were allegedly not similarly strip searched, the District of Columbia could not be held liable because the former Superior Court Marshal was not a D.C. official but an appointed federal official and was not a policymaker for the district. The Marshal was entitled to qualified immunity as the Fourth Amendment right he was accused of violating was not clearly established at the time. As to the equal protection claim, there was no evidence that he purposefully directed that male and female detainees should be searched differently. Johnson v. Government of the District of Columbia, #11-5115, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 23060 (D.C. Cir.).

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     Prisoner Assault: Indictments charge that deputies beat both jail inmates and visitors at a Los Angeles, California county jail without any valid reason, unjustly detained people, and acted together in a conspiracy to obstruct federal investigators.

Reference:

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

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