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Disability Discrimination: Prisoners

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

     An inmate who suffers from cerebral palsy and scoliosis was mobility impaired and sued correctional authorities for disability discrimination, seeking the right to use his motorized wheelchair in the facility where he was incarcerated. A federal appeals court overturned summary judgment for the defendants, finding that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the facility's mobility assistance program (which required advance requests for mobility aid from other prisoners) provided the inmate with meaningful access to facility services, programs, and activities, and as to whether allowing him the use of his motorized wheelchair would unduly burden the prison. The plaintiff argued that the mobility assistance program failed to account for any unexpected need for immediate assistance. The court also held that a blanket ban on motorized wheelchairs - without an individualized inquiry into the risks of allowing a mobility-impaired inmate to use his or her motorized wheelchair - violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. Wright v. New York State Dep’t of Corr., #15-3168, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 13809 (2nd Cir.).

Medical Care

    A pretrial detainee asserted that medical care at a county jail fell below constitutional standards as a matter of official policy, custom, or practice.The 2008 findings from a U.S. Department of Justice investigation of health care at the jail found systemic flaws in the jail's scheduling, record-keeping, and grievance procedures that produced health care below the minimal requirements of the U.S. Constitution. In this case, a federal appeals court reversed the trial court’s refusal to allow admission of the report as evidence toward meeting a plaintiff’s burden of proving an unconstitutional custom, policy, or practice. The appeals court concluded that it should be admitted under the hearsay exception for civil cases in Federal Rule of Evidence 803(8)(A)(iii) for factual findings from legally authorized investigations. Daniel v. Cook County, #15-2832, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 14886 (7th Cir.).

Medical Care: Dental

     An Iowa inmate claimed that a correctional director and a doctor were deliberately indifferent to his need for dentures. Assuming, for purposes of appeal, that the prisoner had an objectively serious medical need for the dentures, a federal appeals court ruled that the plaintiff had failed to establish that either defendant deliberately disregarded this need. Undisputed evidence showed that the delay in providing the dentures was caused by a turnover or shortage of dentists in the prison. Neither defendant caused that shortage nor the general issues that interfered with dentist recruitment and retention. Cullor v. Baldwin, #14-3723, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 13867 (8th Cir.).

Prison Litigation Reform Act: "Three Strikes" Rule

     A prisoner's lawsuit over alleged inadequate medical care and unsafe prison conditions was not barred by the "three strikes" rule of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). A dismissal pursuant to Heck v. Humphrey, #93-6188, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), was not a PLRA strike because his Heck-barred damages claims were intertwined with his habeas challenge to the underlying sentence. The court held that a dismissal due to Younger v. Harris, #41, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), abstention, similar to a dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, is not a strike under the PLRA. Finally, his two prior mandamus petitions directly challenged underlying criminal proceedings, and were more properly construed as appeals of criminal case habeas claims challenging a criminal conviction and lie outside the scope of the PLRA. Washington v. LA Cnty. Sheriff's Dep't., #13-56647, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 14854 (9th Cir.).

     A prisoner who filed at least eleven prior lawsuits against prison officials was not barred from pursuing the present lawsuit as a pauper under the three strikes rule of the Prison Litigation Reform Act's (PLRA), 28 U.S.C. 1915(g) when only one of those prior cases was dismissed as frivolous, malicious, or failing to state a claim. Dismissal for failure to exhaust administrative remedies did not constitute a "strike" under the PLRA. El-Shaddai v. Wang, #13-56104, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 14853 (9th Cir.).

Prisoner Assault: By Inmates

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

     After a prisoner was beaten to death by his cellmate, his estate sued, claiming that the decedent's Eighth Amendment rights were violated when he was housed with that cellmate. While upholding qualified immunity for other defendants, the appeals court reversed as to a deputy warden and a corrections officer. These two defendants allegedly knew from the population chart and cell checklist that the cellmate, a convicted murderer, was designated as a Level III mental health inmate who had previously been transferred to the lock-down segregation unit for disciplinary, protected custody. and mentally ill prisoners after assaulting his former cellmate. They also allegedly were aware of the cellmate's severe paranoid schizophrenia, his delusions, and his violent impulses. Bowen v. Warden, #15-11109, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 11298, 26 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 431 (11th Cir.).

 Prisoner Discipline

     A Kansas inmate was disciplined for violating a prohibition on fighting. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the inmate was not accorded due process as the finding by the hearing officer that he had violated the prohibition was unsupported by the evidence. There was no evidence to disprove self-defense, and state regulations clearly and unambiguously made the absence of self-defense an element of the offense itself. May v. Cline, #110095, 372 P.3d 1242, 2016 Kan. Lexis 310.

Religion

     A Wiccan prisoner on his own behalf and on behalf of thirty fellow Wiccan inmates sued, demanding that the prison recognize Wicca as a bona fide religion and give its followers the same rights as inmates of other faiths. In 1997, a comprehensive settlement agreement was entered into, followed by a second settlement agreement approved by the court in 2011 as a consent decree and according the inmates additional privileges. On appeal the issue was whether the trial court properly decided to terminate the consent decree on the basis of full compliance. The appeals court found that the trial court committed numerous errors in terminating a consent decree that had been carefully crafted over the course of two decades; applied the wrong legal standard, and found substantial compliance without giving due attention to the various exacting obligations embodied in the decree, and without considering whether the purpose of the decree had been served. Further, the trial court improperly refused to hold an evidentiary hearing to resolve material factual disputes about whether defendants had complied with the decree, The appeals court also held that under no circumstances should the trial court consider terminating a decree unless and until there has been a substantial period of substantial compliance - in this case no less than a year - with every one of its terms. The consent decree was reinstated. Rouser v. White, #13-56152, 825 F.3d 1076 (9th Cir. 2016).

Search: Prisoners

     A man civilly committed at a hospital as a sexually violent predator claimed that employees of the state Department of Mental Health violated his constitutional rights when they forcibly collected his fingerprints, a mouth swab, and a blood sample without a warrant. The appeals court ruled that defendants reasonably could have concluded that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless collection of a civilly committed person’s DNA profile, and the plaintiff had a reduced expectation of privacy as a civilly committed sexually violent predator. Courts generally have recognized the collection of a blood sample as a minimally intrusive mechanism for obtaining information from individuals in state custody; and the trial court did not err when it found that defendants are entitled to qualified immunity with respect to this claim. Excessive force claims were also rejected as the minor injuries suffered in the course of the incident did not permit an inference that the force used was unreasonable under these circumstances. Carter v. Huterson, #15-1897, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 14490 (8th Cir.).

Sexual Assault

     Eight female alien detainees sued under both 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 2671 et seq., claiming that a male corrections officer at a privately run prison had sexually assaulted them. Sec. 1983 claims were properly dismissed against the company running the facility and its facility administrator, as well as summary judgment granted on that claim against the officer, since the detention of the plaintiffs according to ICE specifications was carried out under federal law, not under color of state law as required for a Sec. 1983 claim. Claims against the county, which had almost no involvement in the facility's operation, were also rejected. The appeals court also upheld the rejection of FTCA against the U.S. government, as there was no evidence that ICE officials acted with deliberate indifference. Doe v. United States, #15-50331, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 13696 (6th Cir.).

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     Federal Prisons: Special Management Units, Program Statement 5217.02 (August 9, 2016).

     Medical Care: National Survey of Prison Health Care: Selected Findings, by Karishma A. Chari, Alan E. Simon, Carol J. DeFrances, Laura M. Maruschak, Bureau of Justice Statistics (July 28, 2016 NCJ 249781).

     Private Prisons: U.S. Justice Department memo on decision to cease using private prisons (August 18, 2016).

  Reference:

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

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