WESTEFER v. SNYDER
725 F.Supp.2d 735 (2010)
United States District Court, S.D. Illinois.
July 20, 2010.
7. SummaryThe Court concludes that existing IDOC procedures for placing inmates at Tamms are inadequate to protect the liberty interest of IDOC inmates in avoiding confinement at the supermax prison. For inmates assigned to Tamms in disciplinary segregation, an Adjustment Committee hearing on the disciplinary charge underlying the segregation sentence of such inmates is not an adequate procedural safeguard inasmuch as inmates are not warned at their Adjustment Committee hearing that a portion of the punishment for their disciplinary infraction is likely to be confinement at Tamms. In fact, as has already been discussed, in some instances months and even years passed between the time when an inmate committed a disciplinary infraction and the time when the inmate was placed in disciplinary segregation at Tamms. For inmates assigned to Tamms in administrative detention, the transfer review hearing prescribed for such inmates is inadequate to protect their liberty interest in avoiding confinement at Tamms because inmates receive no notice in advance of the hearing of the reason for their placement at Tamms and thus are unable effectively to challenge their placement at Tamms at their transfer review hearing. In fact, it appears that some IDOC inmates did not learn the reason for their placement of Tamms even after they had received a transfer review hearing. Also, after a transfer review hearing, at which many inmates were never apprised of their right to contest their placement at Tamms, the only explanation furnished for an assignment to the supermax prison was a one-line statement that the inmate had been properly placed at the supermax prison.
The procedure for assigning inmates to Tamms set out in Point One of IDOC Director Randle's Ten-Point Plan is a vast improvement in the amount of process that IDOC inmates receive when under consideration for placement at Tamms, but the procedure set out in Point One of the Plan suffers from two constitutional infirmities: first, the Plan makes no provision for inmates placed at Tamms to be informed in writing of the reason for their placement at the supermax prison in advance
of their transfer review hearing; and second, the Plan is prospective only and does not provide for inmates transferred to Tamms in disciplinary segregation before the date of implementation of the Plan to receive a transfer review hearing. The Court concludes that the process for placing inmates at Tamms outlined in Point One of IDOC Director Randle's Plan is constitutionally adequate in most respects, and the Court adopts Point One of the Plan as its grant of equitable relief in this case, subject to the following modifications: inmates placed at Tamms must receive advance notice in writing of the reason for their placement at least forty-eight hours before a transfer review hearing regarding their placement at Tamms; and all inmates assigned to Tamms in disciplinary segregation must receive a transfer review hearing, including inmates assigned to disciplinary segregation at Tamms before the date of entry of this Order. Finally, the weight of evidence in this case shows that the IDOC does not have a policy of discriminating against former Tamms inmates by reason of their assignment to Tamms, and therefore the declaratory relief requested by Plaintiffs and the class will be denied. III. CONCLUSIONThe Court has considered carefully all of the evidence and arguments of the parties, as well as the relevant law. Having done so, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs and the class have shown an entitlement to injunctive relief. Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED as follows:
1. The Chief Administrative Officer of the Tamms Closed Maximum Security Facility ("Tamms CMAX") shall appoint members of the Transfer Review Committee.
2. The Transfer Review Committee shall conduct Transfer Review Hearings for each inmate transferred to Tamms CMAX.
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.