Fisher v. Koehler

Decision Date09 August 1988
Docket NumberNo. 83 Civ. 2128 (MEL).,83 Civ. 2128 (MEL).
Citation692 F. Supp. 1519
PartiesCharles FISHER, Edward Holohan, John Harris, Ledgure Davis, Lionel Lawson, Victor Ellis, John Thompson, Milton Gadson, individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Richard KOEHLER, Commissioner of the Department of Correction of the City of New York; James T. Garvey, Supervising Warden of C-76; Bruce Sullivan, Warden of C-76; Sheila Vaughn, Deputy Warden for Administration at C-76; David C. White, Deputy Warden for Security at C-76; Joseph Colon, Deputy Warden for Programs at C-76; Steven Thomas, Assistant Commissioner for Health, Education and Social Services for the Department of Correction; Steven C. Joseph, Commissioner of the Department of Health; Allan Goldberg, Director of Prison Health Services for the Department of Health; Mel Kaye, Ph.D., Director of Mental Health services for Prison Health Services; Dr. Murray Rosenthal, Director of Dentistry of the Department of Health; Edward Koch, Mayor of the City of New York, Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Philip L. Weinstein, John Boston, Claudette R. Spencer, Dale A. Wilker, The Legal Aid Society, Prisoners' Rights Project, New York City, for plaintiffs.

Peter L. Zimroth, Corp. Counsel of the City of New York, New York City (Diane Morgenroth, Steven H. Mosenson, Hway-Ling Hsu, Asst. Corp. Counsels, of counsel), for defendants.

LASKER, District Judge.

In this action, plaintiffs, who are a class1 of inmates at the New York City Correctional Institution for Men ("CIFM"),2 have challenged the conditions of confinement at CIFM on many grounds, of which rampant violence, both between inmates and between staff and inmates, is one of the most significant and distressing. After a long trial on a motion for a permanent injunction on the separate issue of violence at CIFM and its causes, it is determined that plaintiffs have established that violence at CIFM, both inmate-inmate and staff-inmate, has reached proportions that violate the Eighth Amendment.3 Systematic deficiencies in the operation of CIFM, most significantly, overcrowding, overreliance on open dormitory housing, lack of adequate classification, inadequate staffing and supervision, and inadequate systems for controlling, investigating and disciplining misuse of force, have led to a world where inmates suffer physical abuse, both by other inmates and by staff, in a chillingly routine and random fashion. Although defendants have implemented many positive changes at CIFM during the course of and after the trial, the entrenched and recurring nature of violence at CIFM requires the issuance of an injunction, albeit one which will take into account defendants' recent efforts to improve the situation.

On October 3, 1986, plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction "requiring defendants to take appropriate action to end the pattern of violence among inmates and between inmates and staff at" CIFM,4 one of the most pressing issues raised in the complaint. The hearing on the preliminary injunction began on October 23, 1986; the hearing on the application for a preliminary injunction was later consolidated with the trial on the merits on the separate issue of violence, under Fed.R. Civ.P. 65(a)(2). Testimony was heard at intervals through June 9, 1987, and the record was substantially completed on June 25, 1987. Post-trial memoranda, totalling almost 950 pages, were submitted by October 26, 1987.

Plaintiffs' witnesses consisted of fourteen CIFM inmates and former inmates and four expert witnesses. Toni V. Bair, regional administrator of the Central Region of the Virginia Department of Corrections, and Colonel James Shoultz, who has most recently been Director of Corrections in the Seminole County, Florida jail system, testified as experts on correctional administration.5 Vincent M. Nathan, an attorney who has served as a court-appointed master in numerous cases involving the misuse of force in prisons, testified as an expert concerning use of force issues, including the investigation, monitoring and discipline of use of force, and remedies for use of force in correctional systems. T. 4233.6 Professor Verne C. Cox, chair of the Department of Psychology of the University of Texas at Arlington, testified as an expert in psychology and the effects of crowding.7

Defendants' witnesses included Richard J. Koehler, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction ("Department of Correction"); James T. Garvey, who was then Warden of CIFM;8 Judy Schultz, who was then Inspector General of the Department of Correction; Francesca Digirolamo, the civilian Director of Classification; a former director from the Training Academy; five CIFM captains and ten CIFM correction officers. Defendants called two expert witnesses. James W. Painter, who is Chief of the Custody Division of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, testified as an expert on corrections.9 Dr. Gerald G. Gaes, a Senior Research Analyst at the United States Bureau of Prisons, testified as an expert on the effects of prison crowding.10

Both parties also submitted extensive documentary evidence at trial. In addition, following the testimony of the expert witnesses, the parties entered into two testimonial stipulations. Defendants' Exhibit ("DX") XXX describes further testimony that certain witnesses for the defendants would have presented if they had been called, including efforts at improvement in various areas at CIFM. DX DDD describes new procedures and efforts at improvement in the Department of Correction's classification system about which Francesca Digirolamo, defendants' Director of Classification, would have testified if she had been recalled as a witness. Finally, with the submission of post-trial briefs, the parties also submitted further affidavits, including a supplemental affidavit from Commissioner Koehler describing defendants' efforts to improve CIFM since the close of the trial.

The court, accompanied by counsel for the parties and various CIFM officials, toured CIFM on January 8, 1987, visiting many of the areas relevant to the case.

I. The New York City Correctional Institution for Men

CIFM is a medium security facility operated by the New York City Department of Correction. It is the principal facility in which New York City's sentenced male inmates are incarcerated. The city-sentenced inmates at CIFM are serving terms of one year or less for violations, misdemeanors, or low-degree felonies.11 Of the sentenced men, roughly eighty-two percent are adults aged twenty-one and above, and approximately eighteen percent are adolescents aged sixteen to twenty. CIFM also houses technical state parole violators who have been remanded pending a final revocation hearing; these violators constitute roughly seventeen percent of the population.

CIFM's official capacity is 2083. As is discussed in greater detail in Section IV of this opinion, its population has reached peaks as high as 2800; the average population at CIFM at the time of the trial was about 2500-2600 inmates. Commissioner Koehler testified that the average length of stay for sentenced inmates at CIFM is fifty days, T. 3434, and the average length of stay for parole violators is fifty-four days, T. 3435, but many of the inmates who testified at trial had been incarcerated for much longer periods, several for as long as eight months, and one for over a year. (Consecutive sentences may result in an inmate's incarceration at CIFM for more than a year.) Other inmates are at CIFM for far briefer periods than fifty days.

CIFM's main building was built in 1964, with one set of dormitories added in 1970. Three prefabricated "modules" were attached to the jail in 1984-1985. General population inmates at CIFM, as well as most protective custody inmates, are housed in large unpartitioned dormitories. PX 247 (admissions 24 and 31); T. 1798 (Captain DeCicco). In addition, there are four cell areas, with a total of 136 cells, used for adult administrative segregation, adolescent administrative segregation, mental observation, and punitive segregation. There are also dormitories designated for drug detoxification, mental observation, and infirmary use.

On the North Side of CIFM there are two floors of twin cell corridors in the shape of a chevron; there are thirty-four cells on each corridor, for a total of 136 cells, as stated above. Each cell has a window, a toilet and a sink; most of the cell areas have a dayroom at the front. There are also four dormitories on the North side: two per floor. The South Side of CIFM and the Annex each contain three floors with four dormitories per floor. These dormitories are large rectangular areas with beds, most of them double bunks, and with a dayroom, bathroom and officer's station near the entrance. The three modular units each contain two separate prefabricated housing units, which share a single large officer's station near the entrance.12

CIFM also contains dining areas for inmates and staff, a chapel, a gymnasium, a clinic, a law library and other program and administrative areas.

II. Inmate-Inmate Violence at CIFM: Scope of the Problem

Plaintiffs have established that inmate-inmate violence pervades CIFM. As described below, the evidence at trial demonstrated an alarmingly high level of reported incidents of inmate-inmate violence, which has spiralled upward from almost nine hundred incidents in 1982 to over thirteen hundred incidents in 1986. Although about twenty-five percent of these incidents were fights in which there was no documentation of injury, plaintiffs have documented numerous examples of stabbings, burnings, sexual assaults and other serious and gruesome injuries. Many of these injuries were inflicted by inmates who had acquired lengthy histories of violence against other inmates but who were still housed and allowed to roam at large in...

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  • Madrid v. Gomez
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 9th Circuit. United States District Courts. 9th Circuit. Northern District of California
    • January 10, 1995
    ...of force; and (e) officer discipline for the misuse of force. Nathan Tr. XX-XXXX-XXXX; Nathan Decl. at 15; see also Fisher v. Koehler, 692 F.Supp. 1519, 1551 (S.D.N.Y.1988), aff'd, 902 F.2d 2 (2nd Each of these interrelated components builds upon and reinforces the others. Thus, adequate wr......
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    ...have been stopped in anticipation of suit, and may be resumed if there is no injunction to prevent it. For example, in Fisher v. Koehler (S.D.N.Y.1988) 692 F.Supp. 1519, the plaintiffs established eighth amendment violations at a New York correctional facility. Pointing to recent reforms, t......
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2 books & journal articles
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    • October 1, 2020
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