WESTEFER v. SNYDER
725 F.Supp.2d 735 (2010)
United States District Court, S.D. Illinois.
July 20, 2010.
A. From February till August, about five or six months.
Q. And how come you are not there any more, what happened to change it?
A. Well, I don't know. Just I was put in the lieutenant asking to be moved over to the West House or East House so I could get my audio-visual privileges. And one day they move me over there. I guess behavior, didn't catch any tickets or anything like that.
Q. Something you can earn your way out of here?
A. Yeah.
Doc. 514 (Guthrie Testimony) at 19-20. Currently Guthrie resides in segregation in the West Cell House at Pontiac in a one-man barred cell. See id. at 19. In his barred cell, Guthrie is able to communicate easily with inmates in neighboring cells and passers-by: "Here [Pontiac] talk to anybody you want to. Here you got guys everybody is talking, even people you don't want to talk to want to talk to you. You know what I mean?" Id. at 21.
Instances from the testimony in this case regarding the difference between segregation at Pontiac and confinement at Tamms with respect to the vastly greater degree of liberty that inmates have to communicate with one another at the former prison could be set out at some length, but the Court merely will note a few additional examples. Concerning the relatively brief time that segregation inmates spend in the most restrictive cells at Pontiac, Charles Harris testified that, after a fight in December 2008, he spent forty-six days in a cell with a plexiglass window in the door on the lower level of Pontiac's North Cell House. See Doc. 514 (Harris Testimony) at 26-28. He then was transferred to an open cell with bars on the upper Two Gallery of the North Cell House, where he stayed for forty days before being released from segregation pursuant to a decision from the Administrative Review Board. See id. at 28. This is unlike confinement at Tamms where, as already has been discussed, inmates spend years alone in cells with meshed steel doors and have no way, apart from their parole date, of knowing, when, or if, they will be released from such conditions. Alex Pearson testified that for the first thirty days or so that he was in disciplinary segregation at Pontiac, he stayed in a cell with a perforated door until he was evaluated. See id. (Pearson Testimony) at 48. After his evaluation Pearson was moved to a regular barred cell on the gallery with at least fifty other inmates "where guys coming and going, guys that got TVs and radios, where the farm workers would be able to communicate with you and things of that nature." Id. at 49. Larry Strickland, who, as already has been discussed, was transferred out of Tamms due to his worsening mental condition as a result of the intense isolation of his confinement in the supermax prison, noted that confinement in an ordinary barred cell at Pontiac gives even inmates in segregation a degree of freedom to communicate with other inmates that is utterly impossible at Tamms:
1. The Court notes that there is also a minimum security prison at Tamms; all references to Tamms in this Order are to the supermax prison there.
2. This perhaps is the place to note that this Order is intended to be a concise account of the bench trial conducted on the procedural due process claims in this case, and to that end only matters deemed by the Court to be credible, material, and relevant will be reported. The reader should presume that evidence omitted from the Court's findings of fact was considered by the Court to be irrelevant or in any event less persuasive than competing evidence. The Court notes in passing that, in addition to alleging violations of procedural due process, Plaintiffs Von Perbandt, Taylor, Sparling, Sorrentino, Santiago, V. Rodriguez, E. Rodriguez, Lasley, Knox, Horton, Harper, Felton, Combs, Clayton, Chapman, Burrell, Bivens, and Cunningham also assert claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that they were assigned by Defendants to the supermax prison at Tamms in retaliation for filing grievances and lawsuits and engaging in other protected activities challenging the conditions of their confinement, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. These retaliation claims have been resolved in a series of jury trials, and they are not at issue here.
3. In fact, statistical data assembled by the IDOC shows that the average time served for the current population at Tamms is 73.4 months, or over six years. See Ten-Point Plan (Plaintiffs' Exhibit 7) at 6. Seventy of the 243 inmates (28.3%) have been at Tamms for at least ten years, and more than half have been at Tamms for over five years. See id. at 8. Over three-quarters (76.9%) or 190 of the inmates at Tamms have been there for over three years. See id., Table 4.
4. The Court recognizes that it is assuming here that, were work, education, and substance abuse programs available at Tamms, inmates of the supermax prison would participate in such programs. This assumption seems reasonable to the Court. Participation in such programs doubtless would be a happy alternative to the crushing monotony of being confined alone in a cell for up to twenty-four hours a day that currently is the lot of Tamms inmates. Also, it seems probable that Tamms inmates would welcome the opportunity to earn money by participating in work programs, in order to purchase small items like walkmans or arch supports that make life in a place like Tamms somewhat more bearable. See Doc. 433 (Testimony of Adolfo Rosario) at 50-51 (the witness, a Tamms inmate, complained that the shoes issued to him by Tamms correctional personnel lack arch supports, but he cannot purchase shoe inserts at the prison commissary because he is indigent and has no money to spend at the commissary).
5. Finally, although strictly speaking Point Two of IDOC Director Randle's Plan is not concerned with the issue of whether or not an inmate should be placed at Tamms, it is worth noting that Point Two protects inmates from spending an unnecessary amount of time in the supermax prison. Under the Plan, as already has been noted, upon arrival at Tamms new inmates of the supermax prison will be advised at orientation of the probable length of their stay at the prison, expressed as a range of possible terms of supermax confinement; further, inmates will work with counselors to ensure that they achieve the behavioral levels necessary to be transferred out of Tamms in the least possible time. See Ten-Point Plan (Plaintiffs' Exhibit 7) at 16; Doc. 522 (Randle Testimony) at 13-14.