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Prison Litigation Reform Act: Exhaustion of Remedies

     A man claimed that he had been denied needed medical care for a pre-incarceration abdominal bullet wound during his nine months as a pretrial detainee in a county jail. The trial court dismissed the lawsuit for failure to properly exhaust available administrative remedies as there was no record of his having filed a grievance. He testified that he had never received or been allowed access to a copy of the jail's grievance procedure, while acknowledging that he knew of the existence of the procedure from other prisoners. He also stated that he had asked a guard for a grievance form, but never received one. There was testimony from another prisoner who overheard the plaintiff ask for a grievance form. There was also evidence that the plaintiff met with the warden, who promised to "take care" of the problem and speak to the medical staff, but allegedly did not suggest filing a grievance. The federal appeals court reinstated the lawsuit. When a jail official invites noncompliance with a grievance procedure, the detainee is not required to follow the procedure. Swisher v. Porter Cnty. Sheriff's Dep't., #13-3602, 769 F.3d 553 (7th Cir. 2014).

Prisoner Assault: By Inmate

     A prisoner being admitted to a federal penitentiary allegedly told an intake psychologist that he was mentally ill to the extent that it impaired his ability to function and that he was afraid that he would be attacked if he was placed in the general population. He was placed in the general population and was attacked by another prisoner without provocation on his way to lunch, suffering extensive injuries to his face and head. He sued the U.S. government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2674, claiming that the psychologist did not examine all his available medical documents before releasing him into the general population and that guards failed to monitor their assigned areas, thereby failing to observe the assault, all in violation of mandatory regulations. The federal appeals court overturned summary judgment granted to the government under the discretionary function exception to liability under the Act. The appeals court found that the government had failed to meet its burden of showing that the discretion function exception shielded it from liability as a matter of law under these circumstances. Keller v. United States, #13-3113, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 21718 (7th Cir.).

Prisoner Assault: By Officer

     When an inmate did not comply with an officer's orders to back up to a cell door to be placed in restraints, the officer sprayed a chemical agent into the cell, subsequently issuing the prisoner a major misconduct ticket. Overturning qualified immunity for the officer in an excessive force lawsuit, a federal appeals court ruled that there was a genuine factual issue of whether, as the prisoner claimed, he was sleeping and covered from head to toe in his blanket at the time the chemical agent was sprayed into the cell. If the facts were as the prisoner alleged, rather than as the officer stated, then the use of force would have violated clearly established law. Roberson v. Torres, #13-1405, 770 F.3d 398 (6th Cir. 2014).

     In a prisoner's lawsuit claiming that correctional officers used excessive force in restraining him, a federal appeals court reversed a grant of summary judgment on claims against one officer, as he had exhausted available administrative remedies against that defendant. The law did not require the jury instruction given that it was established that he had resisted the officers (because he was found guilty of resisting in a disciplinary hearing), and the plaintiff was prejudiced on his claims that were tried by the instruction given, so the judgment based on a jury verdict for the remaining defendants was vacated. Wilkerson v. Wheeler, #11-17911, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 21809 (9th Cir.).

Prisoner Death/Injury

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

     The City of New York reached a $2.25 million settlement with the family of a homeless veteran mentally ill man arrested on charges of trespassing in a public housing building. He died in what was described as a "searing hot cell" at the jail complex on Rikers Island. The temperature in the cell in the jail's mental health unit allegedly exceeded 100 degrees, and the heating equipment there on the date of his death in February was broken, excessively heating the cell. The detainee was allegedly unattended for around four hours in the cell. The death was alleged a result of hypothermia caused by exposure to the heat and its adverse interaction with antipsychotic medication the detainee was taking for schizoaffective disorder. Murdough v. City of New York, settlement reached before a planned lawsuit could be filed, reported in the New York Times, Oct. 31, 2014.

     An inmate at a county detention facility was found dead in his cell from a methadone overdose. A lawsuit by his estate claimed that his serious medical needs had been deliberately disregarded in violation of the Eighth Amendment. A federal appeals court affirmed a grant of summary judgment to the defendants, finding that there was no evidence that the defendants knew that the decedent was suffering serious side effects from methadone but deliberately ignored the problem. There was also no evidence that a supervisor had failed to train a detention deputy. Laganiere v. The County of Olmsted, #14-1088, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 22136 (8th Cir.).

Prisoner Discipline

     An inmate assisted another prisoner in writing a letter to officials outside the state Department of Corrections concerning an officer's alleged acceptance of a pair of ostrich-skin shoes made by the second prisoner. He claimed that the officer subsequently caused him to convince the second prisoner to dismiss his complaint by giving him favorable treatment. The first prisoner filed grievances that the officer had coerced him into doing so and discussed with another inmate a fabrication that he had possessed a cell phone. When a cell phone was found in another inmate's bunk during a search, the first prisoner claimed that he was warned by an officer that disciplinary charges concerning the phone would be filed against him unless he withdrew his grievances. He was charged and found guilty of use of a cell phone, losing privileges and spending 30 days in isolation, and the decision was upheld on review. In a lawsuit for retaliatory discipline, the jury found for the plaintiff and awarded him $1 in nominal damages. A federal appeals court reversed and remanded the decision and award, finding that the prisoner received adequate notice of the disciplinary charges against him. did not show that there were any witnesses or evidence that he was barred from presenting at the disciplinary hearing, and received a copy of the decision of the disciplinary hearing. The defendant officer was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law because there was "some evidence" to support the discipline imposed against plaintiff and "some evidence" that he committed the charged infraction. Sanders v. Page, #13-3237, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 22785 (8th Cir.).

Religion

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

     A federal prisoner and the American Humanist Association sued the federal government, seeking a judicial determination that secular humanism, defined as “an ethical and life-affirming philosophy free of belief in any gods and other supernatural forces," should be recognized as a religion so that a prison would allow the creation of a humanist study group. A federal trial judge accepted the argument, finding that denying secular humanists equal rights with other theistic religions could violate the Establishment of Religion Clause of the First Amendment. “The court finds that Secular Humanism is a religion for Establishment Clause purposes,” American Humanist Association v. United States, #3:14-cv-00565, 2014 U.S. Dist. Lexis 154670 (D. Or.).

Strip Searches: Prisoners

     A lawsuit by two plaintiffs challenged both strip searches and delousing procedures at a West Virginia Regional Jail. A federal appeals court upheld summary judgment for the defendants on the strip search claims, since the law on the subject was not yet clearly established when one of the two plaintiffs was strip searched, and the strip search of the second was lawful under the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington, #10-945, 132 S.Ct. 1510 (2012), ruling that deference should be given to jail officials unless substantial evidence showed their response to a situation to be exaggerated and that concerns about gang members provided a reasonable basis to justify a visual inspection for signs of gang affilioation during intake. Summary judgment was also granted on claims relating to the jail's delousing procedures which violated no clearly established law. Cantley v. West Virginia Regional Jail, #13-7655, (4th Cir.).

     Arrestees taken into custody between specified dates on charges not involving felony violence, drugs, or weapons were certified as a class to challenge their strip search prior to or with their presentment to a court, The court found that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington, #10-945, 132 S.Ct. 1510 (2012), since it was issued approximately four years after the end of the class period ended, did not show that the law on jail strip searches was clearly established at the time at issue. Summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity was therefore upheld. West v. Murphy, #13-2014, 771 F.3d 209 (4th Cir. 2014).

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     Condoms: Prisoner Protections for Family and Community Health Act, California law requiring the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to develop a five-year plan to expand the availability of condoms in all California prisons (signed into law Sept. 26, 2014). See also: Evaluarion of a Prisoner Condom Access Pilot Program Conducted in One California State Prison Facility, by Kiberle D. Lucas, et al., Public Health Unit, California Correctional Health Care Services (September, 2011), and Condoms behind Bars: A Modest Proposal to Cut STIs in California Prisons, by Dina Fine Maron, Scientific American (Sept. 18, 2013). Vermont's Department of Correctionms adopted a policy allowing the distribution of condoms in prisons in 1987 to try to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted disease. See Prison Rape Elimination Act & Staff Sexual Misconduct - Vermont Facilities, Vermont Dept. of Corrections (May 4, 2012).

     Education: U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice Joint Letter of Guidance, Correctional Education in Juvenile Justice Facilities (Dec. 8, 2014).

     Medical Care: On Life Support: Public Health in the Age of Mass Incarceration, by David Cloud, Vera Institute of Justice (Oct. 18, 2014).

     Prisoner Reentry: Corrections and Reentry: Protected Health Information Privacy Framework for Information Sharing, by Christina Abernathy, Institute for Intergovernmental Research (2014).

     Statisrics: Capital Punishment in the United States, 2013 - Statistical Tables, by Tracy Snell, Bureau of Justice Statistics, December 9, 2014 NCJ 248448.

Reference:

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

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