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DNA

     An intermediate California appeals court reversed the conviction of an arrestee for refusal to provide a DNA sample for inclusion in state and federal databases. A state law that requires that a DNA sample be taken from an adult arrestee charged with any felony immediately after their arrest violates Article 1, Section 13 of the California Constitution because such arrestees, at that time were entitled to a presumption of innocence and there had not yet been a judicial determination of probable cause to believe that they had committed the offense with which they were charged. The requirement to provide a DNA sample intrudes on such arrestees' expectation of informational privacy, and that intrusion is not justified by the government's asserted interest in identification, given that DNA cannot be processed quickly and used immediately to verify who an arrestee is. People v. Buza, #A125542, 231Cal. App. 4th 1446, 2014 Cal. App. Lexis 1100.

Medical Care

     An inmate stated a plausible claim of deliberate indifference against a doctor when he alleged that the doctor had failed to enter the orders needed to provide him with the promised medical care including prescribed tests and treatment for a serious heart condition. It could fairly be inferred, since that doctor had prescribed those tests and treatments, that he subjectively believed that they were necessary and therefore must have known that failure to follow through and provide them could pose an excessive risk to the inmate's health. Claims against a second doctor boiled down to a mere disagreement over the proper medical care to provide. Jackson v. Lightsey, #13-7291, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 23830 (4th Cir.).

Prisoner Assault: By Inmates

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

     An inmate gave information to several correctional officers that a prison nurse was bringing contraband into the facility. An officer later allegedly labeled him a "snitch" in front of other prisoners, exposing the fact that he had provided information about the nurse. The officer was not entitled to qualified immunity because prior precedent established that a detention officer violates a duty to protect a prisoner by labeling him a snitch in front of other inmates, exposing him to a risk of assault. A reasonable officer would have known that such actions violated the plaintiff's constitutional right to protection. Reeves v. King, #13-3416, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 23577 (8th Cir.).

Prisoner Death/Injury

     A $3 million settlement has been reached in a lawsuit filed by the family of a mentally ill inmate who died in a Colorado prison while officers and nurses allegedly laughed and joked while watching him on camera shaking from seizures that turned out to be fatal. He suffered from bipolar schizoaffective disorder. The cause of death was severe hyponatremia (low sodium-blood levels), which is treatable if medical assistance is quickly provided. When the prisoner was found lying face down on the floor, officers believed that he was intentionally refusing to respond, and they dragged him out, took off his clothes, chained him to a chair, and placed a mask over his head. They watched the seizures, apparently thinking that he was faking. He ultimately died lying on the concrete floor in his underwear. Three prison employees were fired and five others disciplined after the death. Lopez v. Wasko, #1:14-cv-01705, U.S. Dist. Ct. (D. Colo. Dec. 11, 2014). Click here to see the complaint. Click here to see an edited video of the death. [Age-restricted, may be disturbing, requires free YouTube registration and sign-in].

     An Illinois prisoner slipped on some wet stairs and injured his back. He had previously used those steps while showering and had, one month before, alerted the warden to the fact that the stairway could be "treacherous" as a result of the water tracked onto the stairs from nearby showers. He sued the warden for alleged deliberate indifference to the hazard and a private company and one of its doctors, under contract to provide medical care at the facility, for alleged inadequate care for his back injury, neglecting to investigate his ongoing, significant pain. A federal appeals court found that the stairway hazard was insufficiently dangerous to support an Eighth Amendment claim. The medial deliberate indifference claim was also rejected, as a reasonable finder of fact could not, from the evidence submitted, find anything more than a mere disagreement about the appropriate course of treatment for the back injury. Pyles v. Fahim, #14-1752, 771 F.3d 403 (7th Cir. 2014).

Prisoner Restraints

     A correctional officer entered a cell where an inmate had been assigned for a medical assessment. The prisoner was uncooperative and aggressively resisted when asked to sit on the bunk, and he bit the officer's abdomen when he was forcibly placed on the bed. He was subsequently placed in four-point restraints at approximately 9:10 a.m., and not removed from them until 3:45 p.m. the next day. At a disciplinary hearing, the prisoner was found guilty of assaulting the officer and suffered a loss of privileges. The prisoner filed a habeas corpus petition claiming his Fifth Amendment due process rights were violated by placing him in four point restraints without a hearing. The trial court dismissed, finding that a habeas petition was not the correct vehicle to raise claims about the conditions of confinement. A federal appeals court reversed and remanded, finding that the trial court should have "liberally construed" the petition, which the prisoner filed while acting as his own attorney, and given him the option to pursue a federal civil rights claim rather than dismissing the case. Spencer v. Haynes, #13-3460, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 23699 (8th Cir.).

Religion

     A federal appeals court ruled that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to prison employees on a federal prisoner's claims for injunctive relief under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb. The prisoner, a priest of the Santeria religion, claimed that the defendants violated his rights by refusing to allow him to receive Santeria beads and shells for religious purposes. The appeals court found that the prison had offered "no evidence" at all to justify its cost and safety concerns, and ruled that the defendants' "generalized" statement of interests, when unsupported by specific and reliable evidence, was not sufficient to show that the restriction in question furthered a compelling governmental interest. Summary judgment to the defendants on First Amendment claims and dismissal of money damages claims under the RFRA were both upheld. Davila v. Gladden, #13-10739, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 345 (11th Cir.).

Segregation: Administrative

     A prisoner was kept in solitary confinement for 39 years, kept in his cell 23 hours a day, with one hour designated for exercise and a shower. It began after he was suspected of the murder of a corrections officer in 1972, a crime for which he was later convicted. During those years, he claimed, he was also not given the ability to participate in religious or educational opportunities or to enjoy other privileges given to those in the general prison population. Officers were properly denied qualified immunity. Reasonable prison officials would have been on notice that continuing the solitary confinement in the manner alleged and for that time period, which would have constituted an atypical and significant hardship in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life, would give rise to a liberty interest requiring procedural protections.

     Additionally, the appeals court found that the fact that he had been transferred to a new facility, where he remained in solitary confinement, was irrelevant. "Given the extraordinarily lengthy detention and the isolating, restrictive conditions that we consider here, there is no basis for concluding that prison officials may avoid the established constitutional rights of prisoners by transferring them to a new facility and wiping the slate clean, while continuing all of the conditions that the prisoner has challenged." Wilkerson v. Stalder, #13-31289, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 23762 (5th Cir.).

Strip Search: Prisoners

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

     A woman was arrested and charged with driving on a license suspended for failure to pay a traffic ticket, She paid her ticket and fines, but while waiting to be released later that same day from the city jail, was ordered to undress and shower in the presence of a corrections officer and two other female detainees. She was also subjected to a visual body cavity search, being instructed to bend at the waist and spread her buttocks. While bent over, despite the fact that there was no indication that she had lice, the officer sprayed her all over her naked body, including into her anus, with a delousing solution. A federal appeals court ruled that the complaint plausibly alleged a Fourth Amendment violation in that the jail, rather than using less invasive procedures, required pretrial detainees who were being processed into the facility to undress in the presence of other detainees and to have their naked genitals sprayed with delousing solution from a pressurized metal canister. It could have, for instance, allowed such detainees to apply the solution themselves. The appeals court rejected the trial court's ruling that the issue raised in the case was precluded from being raised by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Florence v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders of Cnty. of Burlington, #10-945, 132 S. Ct. 1510 (2012), upholding the constitutionality of a blanket policy of strip searching incoming pretrial detainees absent individualized suspicion that each detainee was concealing contraband. Williams v. City of Cleveland, #13-4162, 771 F.3d 945 (6th Cir. 2014).

Transsexual Prisoners

     UPDATE: An anatomically male prisoner in their mid-sixties suffering from gender identity disorder and self-identifying as a female sued the Massachusetts Department of Corrections for not providing her with sex reassignment surgery. It was providing her with hormonal and other medical treatments. A prior federal appeals court panel decision held that the plaintiff was entitled to taxpayer-funded sex change operation, and that refusing to provide the procedure would violate the Eighth Amendment. The request for sex reassignment surgery, the panel stated, was based on a serious medical need, and the defendant correctional department refused to meet that need for reasons amounting to a pretext that were not supported by any legitimate penological interests. Kosilek v. Spencer, #12-2194, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 951 (1st Cir.). The full federal appeals court, ruling en banc, reversed, finding that, in light of the community standard of medical care, the adequacy of the already provided treatment, and various concerns related to safety and prison security at the medium-security facility where the prisoner was incarcerated, the care currently provided did not violate the Eighth Amendment. Kosilek v. Spencer, #12-2194, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 23673 (1st Cir. en banc).

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     Prison Rape and Sexual Abuse: Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011-12-Update, by Allen Beck, Marcus Berzofsky, Dr.P.H., Rachel Caspar, and Christopher Krebs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, December 9, 2014 NCJ 241399.

     Prisoner Death/Injury: A new federal law, the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013, was signed as Public Law No. 113-242 (December 18, 2014).

     Statistics: Correctional Populations in the United States, 2013 by Lauren E. Glaze and Danielle Kaeble, Bureau of Justice Statistics, December 19, 2014 NCJ 248479.

  Reference:

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

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