WESTEFER v. SNYDER
725 F.Supp.2d 735 (2010)
United States District Court, S.D. Illinois.
July 20, 2010.
Q. —when you were in segregation?
A. Yes. When I was in segregation down here I was able to get at least two or three visits a month and in order to go to a visit from down here they take you outside. They take you for a walk. You go from a walk from the segregation unit all the way to like the administration building. And they walk you, escort you up there, nice little distance, a nice little walk. Go through same shakedown procedures, but you are able to communicate with your people a little bit differently even though you are behind the glass.
But just the walk in general is totally different and the time you are able to spend on a visit down here with segregation is different than Tamms. And then your people come like a regular general population setting. They don't have to go through a—they do not have to sit in internal affairs for visiting this and a time and what time they going to be here. And they don't have to be within that little short frame, 30-minute time period, that they complies that list that they fill out and send back to internal affairs.
Down here your people come if they are on your visiting list they can come from 8:00 to I think it's 1:15 your people can come in. They don't have to be in a 30 minute time frame.
Id. (Pearson Testimony) at 50-51. Additionally, inmates in segregation at Pontiac are allowed to keep more personal property than are inmates at Tamms. Unlike Tamms, where as already has been discussed inmates are allowed only two property boxes, fifteen pictures, and twenty-five books, in Pontiac prisoners in segregation are allowed to have six property boxes and a TV box, and there is no limit on the amount of property they can keep inside those boxes. See Doc. 433 (Hughes Testimony) at 80-81.
Finally, the Court notes that a number of inmates who testified to experiencing severe depression and other mental disturbances while confined at Tamms testified also to significant improvement in their mental health after being transferred to the less restrictive conditions of segregation at Pontiac. For example, Rodney Guthrie, who, as already has been noted, believed that he was losing his sanity due to the intense isolation at Tamms and who deliberately had himself classified as an escape risk in an effort to escape the isolation and monotony of Tamms, testified that he was happier since being transferred out of the supermax prison at Tamms to segregation at Pontiac. Stated Guthrie, "Yeah. I say I'm more cheerful now. You know, more happy now. I'm able to wake up, talk to people, you know, socialize with other inmates and things of that nature. I say it's a little bit better here than being at Tamms." Doc. 514 (Guthrie Testimony) at 23. Ronnie Carroll,
who as already has been discussed spent fifty-seven consecutive days on suicide watch at Tamms, stated categorically his preference for segregation at Pontiac rather than the drastic isolation of confinement at Tamms: Down here, I've been to the North House a couple of times and back at the South House and I've not had no mental problems at all.
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.