WESTEFER v. SNYDER
725 F.Supp.2d 735 (2010)
United States District Court, S.D. Illinois.
July 20, 2010.
A. No.
Doc. 417 (Burrell Testimony) at 42-43. The Court has chosen to highlight the testimony of Bivens, Knox, and Burrell because their experiences seem to be representative of the experiences of inmates transferred to Tamms in administrative detention; in fact, Defendants stipulated that the transfer review hearings about which Bivens, Knox, and Burrell testified were typical of such hearings for inmates assigned to Tamms in administrative detention except "to the extent that some of them said they didn't get a chance to speak." Id. (Day 1 Trial Transcript) at 44. Also, the Court has no reason not to credit the testimony of Bivens, Knox, and Burrell that they were not permitted to defend themselves at their transfer review hearings and this testimony is corroborated, as already has been discussed, by the testimony of the IDOC's Rule 30(b)(6) designee Ruane Tanner that before 2005 inmates were not informed at transfer review hearings of their right to make statements, procure the testimony of witnesses, and present evidence.
What emerges from the record is that existing transfer review procedures are not adequate to protect the liberty interest of IDOC inmates in avoiding placement at Tamms. Inmates are not given advance notice of their transfer review hearing or the reason for their placement at Tamms. They are not advised of their right to make statements, present documents, and procure the testimony of witnesses at their transfer review hearing. They are not
furnished with copies of the documents relied upon by prison administrators in placing them at Tamms or a statement of reasons for their placement at Tamms following a transfer review hearing. The lack of notice means that inmates are effectively put in the position of having to defend themselves against charges the nature of which they do not know. For example, Plaintiff Sorrentino testified that at his first transfer review hearing at Tamms not only did the committee conducting the hearing ask him why he thought he had been sent to Tamms but the committee never actually told him the reason that he had been assigned to the supermax prison:
Q. Once you arrived at Tamms, tell us about this, as the Judge puts it, postdeprivation hearing that you received?
A. About 14 days after I arrived at Tamms they brought me out for a hearing.
Q. And did they give you any type of advanced notice of this hearing?
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.