Taylor v. Freeman
| Decision Date | 09 September 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 94-6359,94-6359 |
| Citation | 34 F.3d 266 |
| Parties | Isreal TAYLOR; Dannon Mourfield; Donald Guy; Wayne Moore; and Jimmy Jordan, Plaintiffs Appellees, v. Franklin FREEMAN, Secretary of the Department of Correction; Lynn C. Phillips, Director of the Division of Prisons; Michael Bumgarner, Youth Services Command Manager; and Carol C. Stamey, Superintendent of Morrison Youth Institution, Defendants Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
ARGUED: Jane Ray Garvey, Office of the Atty. Gen. of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC, for appellants. Marvin Ray Sparrow, North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services, Raleigh, NC, for appellees. ON BRIEF: William McBlief, Office of the Atty. Gen. of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC, for appellants. Kathryn L. VandenBerg, North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services, Raleigh, NC, for appellees.
Before WILKINSON, LUTTIG, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
Vacated by published opinion. Judge LUTTIG wrote the opinion, in which Judge WILKINSON and Judge WILLIAMS joined.
On motion by appellees Isreal Taylor and other inmates incarcerated at North Carolina's Morrison Youth Institution, the federal district court in the Eastern District of North Carolina issued a mandatory preliminary injunction on March 23 ordering prison officials at Morrison "to take the following actions by May 30, 1994":
1. Reduce the total inmate population at Morrison Youth Institution to 205 inmates, or less, and thereafter, maintain such number until the final resolution of this action. Specifically, the institution is to house no more than one individual in any single cell, and to limit the inmate population of each dormitory to the following numbers:
Aggrey, A Dorm 42
Aggrey, B Dorm 42
Bost, A Dorm 10
Bost, B Dorm 10
Bost, C Dorm 8
Bost, D Dorm 8
Edwards, A Dorm 14
Edwards, B Dorm 14
Edwards, C Dorm 14
Edwards, D Dorm 14
Edwards, E Dorm 14
2. Create and staff six new correctional officer posts, one each in A and B dorms of Aggrey building, two in Bost building, and two in Edwards building;
3. Cease the use of Bost C and D dormitories or any other dormitory housing for the use of disciplinary segregation, administrative segregation, or protective custody;
4. Devise and present to the court a plan for providing the amount of square feet required by the 1994 Supplement to the American Correctional Association Standards for inmates transferred from Morrison as a result of this order.
Defendants are ordered to reduce the population by at least twenty inmates by April 15, 1994. The defendants are further to continue such reduction by at least twenty inmates twice a month (i.e., April 30, May 15, concluding on May 30, 1994) until the population is sufficiently reduced. Such reduction must be concluded by May 30, 1994.
Order at 7-8. The trial on the merits of the inmates' claims that Morrison is unconstitutionally overcrowded and that inmates are subject to a constitutionally unacceptable level of inmate-on-inmate violence is scheduled to begin later this month.
We immediately stayed the district court's order and expedited consideration of the prison officials' appeal from the order of preliminary injunction. We now vacate that order in its entirety.
It is well established that absent the most extraordinary circumstances, federal courts are not to immerse themselves in the management of state prisons or substitute their judgment for that of the trained penological authorities charged with the administration of such facilities. As the District of Columbia Circuit observed in Inmates of Occoquan v. Barry, 844 F.2d 828 (D.C.Cir.1988), Id. at 841; see also Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 349, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 2400, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981) (); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 562, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1886, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979) (); Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 84-85, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 2259-60, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987). Addressing the concerns of federal judicial competence and comity that underlie this fundamental principle of federal judicial restraint, the Supreme Court explained in Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974), that,
[t]raditionally, federal courts have adopted a broad hands-off attitude toward problems of prison administration.... [T]his attitude springs from complementary perceptions about the nature of the problems and the efficacy of judicial intervention.... Suffice it to say that the problems of prisons in America are complex and intractable, and, more to the point, they are not readily susceptible of resolution by decree. Most require expertise, comprehensive planning, and the commitment of resources, all of which are peculiarly within the province of the legislative and executive branches of government. For all of those reasons, courts are ill equipped to deal with the increasingly urgent problems of prison administration and reform. Judicial recognition of that fact reflects no more than a healthy sense of realism. Moreover, where state penal institutions are involved, federal courts have another reason for deference to the appropriate prison authorities. 1
Id. at 404-05, 94 S.Ct. at 1807 (footnote omitted). Focusing on the comity concern, the Court observed in Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973), that,
[i]t is difficult to imagine an activity in which a State has a stronger interest, or one that is more intricately bound up with state laws, regulations, and procedures, than the administration of its prisons..... The strong considerations of comity that require giving a state court system that has convicted a defendant the first opportunity to correct its own errors thus also require giving the States the first opportunity to correct the errors made in the internal administration of their prisons.
Id. at 491-92, 93 S.Ct. at 1837 (footnote omitted).
Even where there has been a finding on the merits that unconstitutional conditions exist, federal courts should proceed cautiously and incrementally in ordering remediation so as not to assume the role of prison administrators. See, e.g., United States v. Michigan, 940 F.2d 143, 167-68 (6th Cir.1991) ( ); Cody v. Hillard, 799 F.2d 447, 449 (8th Cir.1986) (); Ruiz v. Estelle, 679 F.2d 1115, 1127 (5th Cir.1982) (); Fisher v. Koehler, 692 F.Supp. 1519, 1565, 1567 (S.D.N.Y.1988) (). Cf. Strickler v. Waters, 989 F.2d 1375, 1382 (4th Cir.), cert. denied --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 393, 126 L.Ed.2d 341 (1994).
Indeed, intrusive and far-reaching federal judicial intervention in the details of prison management is justifiable only where state officials have been afforded the opportunity to correct constitutional infirmities and have abdicated their responsibility to do so. For example, in Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978), the Supreme Court upheld the district court's intrusive order for the very reason that it did not come until it was evident that prison officials would not comply with the court's earlier, generalized orders to remedy the unconstitutional conditions:
In fashioning a remedy, the District Court had ample authority to go beyond earlier orders and to address each element contributing to the violation. The District Court had given the Department repeated opportunities to remedy the cruel and unusual conditions in the isolation cells. If petitioners had fully complied with the court's earlier orders, the present time limit might well have been unnecessary. But taking the long and unhappy history of the litigation into account, the court was justified in entering a comprehensive order to insure against the risk of inadequate compliance.
Id. at 687, 98 S.Ct. at 2572 (footnote omitted). The district court had twice found that conditions in the Arkansas penal system violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Id. at 681, 98 S.Ct. at 2568. Even in the face of these findings, the district court "[had] not immediately impose[d] a detailed remedy" but instead had "offered prison administrators an opportunity to devise a plan of their own for remedying the constitutional violations." Id. at 683, 98 S.Ct. at 2579.
In sum, sweeping intervention in the management of state prisons is rarely appropriate when exercising the equitable...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Alexander S. v. Boyd
...their judgment for that of trained penological authorities charged with the administration of such facilities." Taylor v. Freeman, 34 F.3d 266, 268 (4th Cir.1994). In Taylor, the Fourth Circuit stated that "federal courts should proceed cautiously and incrementally in ordering remediation s......
-
Toure v. Hott
...League of Women Voters of N. Carolina v. North Carolina , 769 F.3d 224, 235-36 (4th Cir. 2014) (quoting Taylor v. Freeman , 34 F.3d 266, 270 n. 2 (4th Cir. 1994) ); Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC v. 6.56 Acres of Land, Owned by Sandra Townes Powell , 915 F.3d 197, 216 n.8 (4th Cir.), cert. d......
-
Pevia v. Hogan
...relief involving the management of correctional institutions only under exceptional and compelling circumstances. See Taylor v. Freeman , 34 F.3d 266, 269 (4th Cir. 1994). "Issuing a preliminary injunction based only on a possibility of irreparable harm is inconsistent with [the Supreme Cou......
-
Middleton v. Andino
...status quo and prevent irreparable harm while a lawsuit remains pending.") (internal marks and citations omitted); Taylor v. Freeman , 34 F.3d 266, 270 n.2 (4th Cir. 1994) ("Mandatory preliminary injunctive relief in any circumstance is disfavored, and warranted only in the most extraordina......