|
|
WESTEFER v. SNYDER
725 F.Supp.2d 735 (2010)
Robert WESTEFER, et al., Plaintiffs,
v.
Donald SNYDER, et al., Defendants.
No. CIV 00-162-GPM, CIV 00-708-GPM.
United States District Court, S.D. Illinois.
July 20, 2010.
Alan S. Mills, Uptown People's Law, Lawrence A. Wojcik, Raj N. Shah, Raja S. Gaddipati, Tomas M. Thompson, David J. Pivnick, Elizabeth Bartels, Nika K. Gembicki, DLA Piper US LLP, Paul Homer, Piper Rudnick, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiffs.
Christopher L. Higgerson, Ellen C. Bruce, Joseph N. Rupcich, Larry J. Lipka, Ryan A. Nelson, Terence Corrigan, Julie Morgan, Illinois Attorney General's Office, Springfield, IL, Erik Light, Illinois Attorney General's Office, Chicago, IL, for Defendants.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDERMURPHY, District Judge. I. INTRODUCTIONThe named Plaintiffs in this case, Robert Westefer, Mark Von Perbandt, Alejandro Villazana, Armando Tinajero, Corey A. Taylor, Michael Sparling, Joe Sorrentino, Anibal Santiago, Tyshawn Ross, Vincente Rodriguez, Edward Rodriguez, Vincent Reyna, Alex Muller, William Lasley, Ted Knox, Michael Johnson, Eugene Horton, George Harper, Timothy Hall, John Gill, Larry Gambrell, Larry Foutch, Robert Felton, Kennard Combs, Maurice Coleman,
Leverne Clayton, Gary Clark, Roosevelt Burrell, Finner Bryant, Larry Brown, Aryules Bivens, and Bennie Cunningham, are past and present inmates in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections ("IDOC") who, at the times relevant to this case, have been incarcerated in the closed maximum security prison ("supermax prison") at the Tamms Correctional Center ("Tamms") in Tamms, Illinois.1 Plaintiff Mary Chapman is the legal representative of Marcus Chapman, who formerly was a Plaintiff in this case until he committed suicide while in IDOC custody at Tamms on August 26, 2004. Defendants Donald Snyder, Odie Washington, Michael V. Neal, George DeTella, Michael O'Leary, Dwayne Clark, Jerry Gilmore, Rodney Ahitow, Roger Cowan, Thomas Page, Roger Walker, Salvador Godinez, Guy Pierce, Barbara Hurt, Rick Orr, Ronald Meek, Jason Garnett, Deirdre Battaglia, Eddie Jones, Don Hulick, and Roger Zimmerman are present and former officials and employees of the IDOC. Plaintiffs seek relief in this case under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Defendants have violated their right to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution by employing constitutionally inadequate procedures when assigning IDOC inmates to the supermax prison at Tamms. Additionally, Plaintiffs Westefer, Von Perbandt, Villazana, Tinajero, Sparling, Sorrentino, Santiago, Ross, V. Rodriguez, E. Rodriguez, Reyna, Muller, Lasley, Knox, Johnson, Horton, Harper, Hall, Gill, Gambrell, Foutch, Felton, Combs, Coleman, Clayton, Clark, Chapman, Burrell, Bryant, Brown, and Bivens represent a class defined as "[a]ll inmates who have been transferred to [Tamms] since January 1, 1998, and all prisoners who will be transferred to Tamms in the future." Westefer v. Snyder, Civil Nos. 00-162-GPM, 00-708-GPM, 2006 WL 2639972, at *12 (S.D.Ill. Sept. 12, 2006). The class-wide claims in this case are solely for injunctive and declaratory relief, not damages. See id. at *9. Also, in previous orders in this case the Court has held that the doctrine of qualified immunity shields Defendants from liability in damages to the named Plaintiffs in this case as individuals for the due process violations alleged by the named Plaintiffs. See Westefer v. Snyder, Civil Nos. 00-162-GPM, 00-708-GPM, 2009 WL 2905548, at **9-11 (S.D.Ill. Sept. 4, 2009); Cunningham v. Snyder, 472 F.Supp.2d 1023, 1033 (S.D.Ill.2006). The class-wide procedural due process claims in this case now have been fully tried to the Court in the course of an eight-day bench trial. Pursuant to Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Court enters this Order as its findings of fact and conclusions of law with respect to the class-wide procedural due process claims.2 A. Mootness
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.
|
|