Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Rufo, 93-1460

• Decision Date: 07 September 1993
• Docket Number: No. 93-1460,93-1460
• Parties: INMATES OF the SUFFOLK COUNTY JAIL, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Robert RUFO, Sheriff of Suffolk County, et al., Defendants, Appellants. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, et al., Defendants, Appellants. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 286

12 F.3d 286

INMATES OF the SUFFOLK COUNTY JAIL, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Robert RUFO, Sheriff of Suffolk County, et al., Defendants,

Appellants.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, et al., Defendants, Appellants.

No. 93-1460.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard Sept. 7, 1993.

Decided Dec. 21, 1993.

Douglas H. Wilkins, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom Scott Harshbarger, Atty. Gen., and Thomas O. Bean, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boston, MA, were on brief, for appellants.

Max D. Stern with whom Lynn Weissberg and Stern, Shapiro, Rosenfeld & Weissberg, Boston, MA, were on brief, for appellees.

Before TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge, CAMPBELL, Senior Circuit Judge, and BOUDIN, Circuit Judge.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Senior Circuit Judge.

The Commissioner of Corrections for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (the "Commissioner"), defendant-appellant, brought a motion in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts to vacate a consent decree of May 7, 1979 (as modified by the orders of April 11, 1985, and April 22, 1985) ¹ entered into by the Sheriff of Suffolk County (the "Sheriff"), the Commissioner, and others with the inmates of the Suffolk County Jail (the "Inmates"), ² the plaintiff-appellee class. The district court denied the Commissioner's motion. Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail v. Rufo, 148 F.R.D. 14 (D.Mass.1993). The Commissioner appeals, arguing, inter alia, that the district court mistakenly treated his motion to vacate as if it were a motion to modify the consent decree. We affirm.

I.

This appeal is part of an ongoing saga involving the construction and the operation of the new Suffolk County Jail on Nashua Street in Boston, Massachusetts (the "Nashua Street Jail"), which replaced the old Suffolk County Jail on Charles Street (the "Charles Street Jail"). The early chapters of this drama, which began in 1971, need not be repeated. They are fully set out in published opinions. See, e.g., Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail v. Kearney, 928 F.2d 33 (1st Cir.1991); Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail v. Rufo, 148 F.R.D. 14 (D.Mass.1993); Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail v. Kearney, 734 F.Supp. 561 (D.Mass.), aff'd mem., 915 F.2d 1557 (1st Cir.1990), vacated, Rufo v. Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 748, 116 L.Ed.2d 867 (1992); Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail v. Eisenstadt, 360 F.Supp. 676 (D.Mass.1973), aff'd, 494 F.2d 1196 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 977, 95 S.Ct. 239, 42 L.Ed.2d 189 (1974). We pick up the story in July 1989, approximately ten years after the consent decree was entered.

"In July 1989, while the [Nashua Street Jail] was still under construction, the [S]heriff moved to modify the consent decree to allow the double bunking of male detainees in 197 cells, thereby raising the capacity of the [Nashua Street Jail] to 610 male detainees." ³

                Rufo v. Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 748, 756, 116 L.Ed.2d 867 (1992).  "The Sheriff argued that changes in law and fact [constituted new and unforeseen circumstances that] justified the modification."  Rufo, 148 F.R.D. at 16.  "The asserted change in law was [the Supreme Court's] 1979 decision in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), handed down [shortly] after the consent decree was approved by the District Court. 4  The asserted change in fact was the increase in the population of pretrial detainees."  Rufo, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 756 (footnote not in original)
                

The district court denied the Sheriff's request to modify the consent decree. Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail v. Kearney, 734 F.Supp. 561 (D.Mass.), aff'd mem., 915 F.2d 1557 (1st Cir.1990). It held that the Sheriff had failed to meet the standard for the modification of consent decrees imposed by United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 119, 52 S.Ct. 460, 464, 76 L.Ed. 999 (1932). ⁵ The district court also "stated that, even under the flexible modification standard adopted by other Courts of Appeals, the [S]heriff would not be entitled to relief because '[a] separate cell for each detainee has always been an important element of the relief sought in this litigation--perhaps even the most important element.' " Rufo, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 756-57 (quoting Kearney, 734 F.Supp. at 565) (footnote omitted). As a final matter, the district court "rejected the argument that the decree should be modified because the proposal complied with constitutional standards, reasoning that such a rule 'would undermine and discourage settlement efforts in institutional cases.' " Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 757 (quoting Kearney, 734 F.Supp. at 565).

This court affirmed the district court's decision. Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail v. Kearney, 915 F.2d 1557 (1st Cir.1990). Thereafter, the Supreme Court granted certiorari, 498 U.S. 1081, 111 S.Ct. 950, 112 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1991), and, after hearing, vacated the decision below and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. Rufo, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 765. The Supreme Court ruled that the district court had erred in applying the rigid "grievous wrong" standard of United States v. Swift to the Sheriff's motion to modify the consent decree. Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 757-58 (holding that Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b) does not intend that "modifications of consent decrees in all cases [are] to be governed by the standard actually applied in Swift ... [but rather] permits a less stringent, more flexible standard"). The Court observed that "[t]he experience of the district and circuit courts in implementing and modifying such decrees has demonstrated that a flexible approach is often essential to achieving the goals of [institutional] reform litigation." Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 758. Against this backdrop, the Court held that "a party seeking modification of a consent decree bears the [initial] burden of establishing that a significant change in circumstances warrants revision of the decree." Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 760. To meet this initial burden, a party seeking modification of an institutional reform consent decree may show "either a significant change in factual conditions or in On remand, the district court reconsidered the Sheriff's motion to modify the consent decree to permit the double-bunking of inmates in 197 of the 322 regular male housing cells at the Nashua Street Jail. The court also considered two other motions filed after the case was remanded, one of which was the Commissioner's present motion to vacate the consent decree altogether. ⁷ See Rufo, 148 F.R.D. at 15. The district court denied all three motions.

                law."  Id.  Once the party seeking modification meets this standard, "the court should consider whether the proposed modification is suitably tailored to the changed circumstance." 6  Id
                

The district court explained its denial of the Sheriff's motion for modification to allow double-bunking of pretrial detainees at the Nashua Street Jail in a comprehensive opinion, concluding that "the Sheriff's proposed modification [was] not suitably tailored to changed circumstances shown by the record." Id. at 24. According to the district court, the Sheriff had not "made [a] showing of reasoned exploration of other feasible alternatives that would maintain rather than impair the integrity of the consent decree." Id. Nevertheless, the district court ruled that, "[t]hough [it] ha[d] rejected the Sheriff's request to double-bunk, ... it does not follow that no acceptable alternative could be fashioned for a modified use of the Nashua Street facility in a way that would meet the objectives of the consent decree, including protection against abuse and undue risk of contagion." Id. Therefore, the district court did "not foreclose consideration of another proposal submitted promptly, with evidentiary support that justifies a finding that it is suitably tailored to changes in circumstances, beyond the control of the defendants after due effort, from the circumstances existing when the decree was entered (or from circumstances existing when it was modified)." Id. The Sheriff appealed from the district court's denial of his two motions, but agreed to stay his appeal pending further proceedings on a new motion to modify filed in the district court. We were told at argument that proceedings regarding this motion are in progress in the district court.

In explaining its denial of the Commissioner's separate motion to vacate the consent decree, the district court began by stating that the Commissioner did not support the Sheriff's proposal for modification because the Commissioner felt that "the plan would require unnecessary judicial involvement in the day-to-day administration of the jail." Id. at 23. The district court noted that the Commissioner objected to being forced by orders in this case to accept from the Sheriff the overflow from the Nashua Street Jail. The district court went on to say:

Rather than submitting his own plan for modification, ... the Commissioner challenges the consent decree and this court's jurisdiction over the case, arguing that it is no longer equitable for the consent decree to have prospective effect....

* * * * * *

The Commissioner's proposed way of avoiding undue involvement of the court in day-to-day implementation of the consent decree is an unacceptable extreme--simply let the Sheriff have unfettered discretion to order double-bunking without any constraints or limitations as to criteria regarding associated conditions of confinement. The Commissioner contends not only that the court should not require that single-bunking be maintained but also that the court should not require that any other safeguards be instituted in lieu of single-bunking to carry out the objectives of the decree as fashioned by consent. This hard-line approach is plainly incompatible with this court's obligation, under the order of remand, to consider whether any proposed...