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First Amendment

     A man convicted of rape and diagnosed with paraphilia (sexual attraction to non-consenting women) was civilly committed to a treatment center as a Sexually Violent Person. He sued the facility's officials and clinical staff for violation of his First Amendment constitutional rights in restricting their access to movies and video games. The facility barred them from watching all R-rated movies or play M(mature)-rated video games displaying intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, or "strong language." Subsequently, the policy was altered to only prohibit 353 specified movies and 232 specific games. When the facility later discovered that at least two residents had used a video game console to access the Internet for the purpose of viewing prohibited content, all such consoles capable of accessing the Internet were also prohibited. A federal appeals court ruled that the record was insufficient to show that the ban on movies and video games was reasonably related to the state's interest in rehabilitation and security. The court also found that a bare assertion that the ban on all sexual material promoted treatment was insufficient to support granting summary judgment for the defendants on the First Amendment claim. The court did agree, however, that the ban on video game consoles capable of accessing the Internet was rationally related to the facility's interest in security. Brown v. Phillips, #14-3325, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 16346 (7th Cir.).

Medical Care

     A prisoner failed to show that prison officials were aware of a substantial risk of harm to him in the time leading up to his injuries in a prison riot to impose liability. But he did adequately show a basis for moving forward on an Eighth Amendment claim relating to his alleged conditions of confinement in the hospital for his injuries for a three day period. A deputy warden was not entitled to qualified immunity, as it was clearly established that forcing a prisoner to soil himself over several days while chained in a hospital bed could create an "obvious health risk," and constituted "an affront to human dignity." Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1997e(e), however, the plaintiff could not recover compensatory or punitive damages in the absence of a claim of physical injury resulting from the hospital stay, but could seek nominal damages for an Eighth Amendment violation. Brooks v. Warden, #13-14437, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 15696 (11th Cir.).

Prisoner Assault: By Inmate

     A pretrial detainee in a county jail was attacked and stabbed. He claimed that his cries for help were ignored by an unidentified guard standing 10-15 feet away. He suffered injuries including severe nerve damage and an eye socket fracture that may lead to blindness. His lawsuit claimed that the jail failed to create or enforce policies necessary to protect detainees against attacks by other detainees and prisoners. The lawyer for the defense sent the plaintiff letters demanding that he sign a release to permit access to all his health records since his birth in 1977, including records with no apparent relevance to the lawsuit, such as records relating to venereal disease, AIDS and HIV, as well as allowing the disclosure of those records to persons not involved in the attack, injuries, or resulting medical treatment. When the plaintiff argued that the release should be limited to the hospital at which he was treated after the attack, the defense moved the court to dismiss the lawsuit for failure to prosecute. The court then dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice without any explanation and without waiting for a reply from the plaintiff. It also dismissed the plaintiff's motion for appointment of a lawyer, which had been pending for two months, as moot. Calling the dismissal under these circumstances "a miscarriage of justice," a federal appeals court vacated it, ordering further proceedings. Reyes v. Dart, #14-3441, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 16475 (7th Cir.).

Prisoner Death/Injury

    A Massachusetts prisoner was killed while being restrained by multiple corrections officers. A claim by his estate was eventually settled for $2 million by the state. In an earlier lawsuit, a man received a punitive damage award in a federal civil rights lawsuit against six state employees held responsible for restraining and beating him in a state mental hospital. The estate of the plaintiff in the earlier lawsuit sued the former state governor and attorney general, claiming that they violated his due process and equal protection rights by settling and paying the claim by the prisoner's estate while refusing, at the same time, to indemnify and pay the punitive damages award owed to it. A federal appeals court found this claim without merit. A payment to another decedent's estate by state officials was not prohibited under state law when there was no finding that the state employees in the prisoner's case had acted in a grossly negligent, willful or malicious manner in that case, unlike the current one. Davis v. Coakley, 14-2306, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 16657 (1st Cir.).

Prisoner Discipline

     A federal appeals court rejected a prisoner's claim that his procedural due process rights were violated in connection with a disciplinary hearing conducted without his presence. The court found that the prisoner could implicitly waive the right to attend such a hearing by refusing to attend it after receiving notice and being afforded an opportunity to attend. Smith v. Fischer, #14-3857, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 17488 (2nd Cir.).

Prisoner Restraint

     A prisoner claimed that hia Eighth Amendment rights were violated when he was secured and kept in a four-point restraint chair naked for 14 hours, although he allegedly did not pose a threat to himself or others. He had a long history of mental illness, which included schizo-affective disorder and bipolar disorder. His symptoms had intensified after his detention in solitary confinement, during which he was kept in his cell 23 hours a day, with one hour of daily recreation in a solitary pen on weekdays. He suffered from both auditory and visual hallucinations, paranoid thoughts, episodes of self-harm, suicidal impulses, and episodes of smearing or throwing his own feces. A federal appeals court vacated summary judgment for the defendants, finding that, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, there were genuine issues of material fact as to whether he posed an imminent threat at the time of the restraint. Young v. Martin, #13-4057, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 15922 (3rd Cir.).

Segregation: Administrative

      A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit challenging the practice of long-term solitary confinement in California prisons. The settlement basically ends indeterminate long-term solitary confinement in the Special Housing Unit in California state prisons, in which prisoners are often confined based on gang affiliation, and spells out detailed procedural requirements. Ashker v. Brown, #C-09-05796, U.S. Dist. Ct. (N.D. Cal. Aug. 31, 2015).

Strip Search: Prisoners

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

     A 12-year-old boy brandished a homemade knife and threatened to break a girl's arms. Three weeks later, after juvenile charges were filed, he was taken to a county youth detention facility, processed, and strip searched. The strip search was conducted under a facility policy to check incoming youths for “injuries, markings, skin conditions, signs of abuse, or further contraband." The search was conducted with the boy behind a curtain so that only the officer conducting the search could observe him. The boy was made to remove his pants and underwear for approximately 90 seconds, as well as to bend over, spread his buttocks, and cough. In his lawsuit challenging the search, a federal appeals court held that the U.S. Supreme Court holding in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, #10-945, 132 S. Ct. 1510 (2012) that every arrestee committed to the general population of a detention center can be subjected to a close visual inspection while undressed applies to juvenile offenders such as the plaintiff admitted to the general population in a juvenile detention facility. J. B. v. Fassnacht, #14-3905, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 16404 (3rd Cir.).

Transsexual Prisoners

     A biologically male prisoner who is transgender sought sex reassignment surgery, and the trial court granted an injunction ordering the surgery. A federal appeals court then stayed the injunction pending appeal. While the appeal was pending, the plaintiff was released on parole. The appeals court found that the facts surrounding the prisoner's release were not sufficiently developed to determine whether the release occurred through ":happenstance" or the defendants' actions. The appeals court ordered the trial court to conduct further proceedings to make that determination, and consider whether or not to vacate its injunctive order. Norsworthy v. Beard, #15-15712, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 17447 (9th Cir.).

Work/Education Programs

     A pretrial detainee, who was an Army veteran, was enrolled in a special veterans' program. He worked in the jail laundry and lived in a special veterans' wing, apart from the general population. He sued, claiming that he was paid $3 a day but should have been paid the federal minimum wage, and that he was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, given insufficient food, was subjected to rodents and insects, had to drink filthy water, lacked outdoor recreation, and had to stand in a "hot, smelly room" for several hours each day. A trial court held that the plaintiff had no constitutional right to be paid at all for his work in jail, much less to be paid minimum wage. Other conditions of confinement claims were dismissed without prejudice for deficiencies in pleading. A federal appeals court reversed the dismissal of the inadequate food and contaminated water claims, but otherwise affirmed. Smith v. Dart, #14-1169, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 17003 (7th Cir.).

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       Medical Care: Guidelines for Medical Management of Staff Exposure to Bloodborne Pathogens, Federal Bureau of Prisons Program Statement 005-2015 (Sept. 23, 2015).

      Statistics: Multistate Criminal History Patterns of Prisoners Released in 30 States, by Alexia D. Cooper, Matthew R. Durose, Howard N. Snyder, Bureau of Justice Statistics (September 24, 2015 NCJ 248942).

      Statistics: Prisoners in 2014, by E. Ann Carson, Bureau of Justice Statistics (September 17, 2015 NCJ 248955).

  Reference:

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

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