Armstrong v. Brown
| Decision Date | 04 October 2013 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 12–16018,12–17198.,s. 12–16018 |
| Citation | 732 F.3d 955 |
| Parties | John ARMSTRONG; James Amauric; Richard Ponciano; Jack Swensen; Billy Beck; Judy Fendt; Walter Fratus; Gregory Sandoval; Darlene Madison; Peter Richardson; Steven Hill; David Rose; David Blessing; Elio Castro; Elmer Umbenhower; Raymond Hayes; Gene Horrocks; Kiah Mincey; Clifton Feathers; Willie Johnson; David Badillo; James Simmons; Flora Abrams; Joey Gough; Timothy Whisman, Plaintiffs–Appellees, v. Edmund G. BROWN, Jr.; Michael Minor; Matthew L. Cate; Diana Toche; Chris Meyer; Kathleen Dickinson; Robert Ambroselli, Defendants–Appellants. John Armstrong; James Amauric; Richard Ponciano; Jack Swensen; Billy Beck; Judy Fendt; Walter Fratus; Gregory Sandoval; Darlene Madison; Peter Richardson; Steven Hill; David Rose; David Blessing; Elio Castro; Elmer Umbenhower; Raymond Hayes; Gene Horrocks; Kiah Mincey; Clifton Feathers; Willie Johnson; David Badillo; James Simmons; Flora Abrams; Joey Gough; Timothy Whisman, Plaintiffs–Appellees, v. Edmund G. Brown, Jr.; Michael Minor; Matthew L. Cate; Diana Toche; Chris Meyer; Kathleen Dickinson; Margarita Perez, Defendants–Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General of the State of California; Jonathan L. Wolff, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Jay C. Russell, Supervising Deputy Attorney General; Giam M. Nguyen, Janelle M. Smith, and Jay M. Goldman (argued), Deputies Attorney General, San Francisco, CA, for Defendants–Appellants.
Michael W. Bien, Gay C. Grunfeld (argued), Lisa Ells, Blake Thompson, and Michael Freedman, Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP, San Francisco, CA; Warren E. George, Bingham McCutchen LLP, San Francisco, CA; Donald Specter and Rebekah Evenson, Prison Law Office, Berkeley, CA; and Linda Kilb, Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, Inc., Berkeley, CA, for Plaintiffs–Appellees.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Claudia Wilken, Chief District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 4:94–cv–02307–CW.
Before: STEPHEN REINHARDT, A. WALLACE TASHIMA, and MARSHA S. BERZON, Circuit Judges.
Since 1994, disabled state prisoners and parolees have been engaged in a seemingly never-ending struggle with California state officials over whether defendants must provide disability accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and the Rehabilitation Act. These accommodations include basic necessities of life for disabled prisoners and parolees, such as wheelchairs, sign language interpreters, accessible beds and toilets, and tapping canes for the blind. Notwithstanding a series of careful district court orders dating back to 1996 and an opinion by this Court affirming the issuance of a permanent injunction, defendants have resisted complying with their federal obligations at every turn. These appeals provide no exception. Defendants contend that a narrow portion of the class of disabled state prisoners and parolees is no longer eligible to benefit from the district court's remedial orders due to a change in California Penal Code § 3056. We reject that contention and affirm the district court's latest enforcement orders.
Our most recent opinion in this case summarized its long history. See Armstrong v. Schwarzenegger, 622 F.3d 1058, 1063–64 (9th Cir.2010). In that opinion, we affirmed the validity of an ADA regulation 1 and concluded that defendants “cannot shirk their obligations to plaintiffs under federal law by housing them in facilities operated by the third-party counties.” Id. at 1074. We made clear that “defendants have the responsibility of ensuring that their prisoners are afforded their rights under the ADA, regardless of where the State incarcerates them.” Id. at 1072.
Since our 2010 decision, plaintiffs have renewed their motion in the district court to enforce the injunction against defendants as it pertains to class members housed in county jails, and California has begun implementation of “realignment,” a plan designed to ameliorate overcrowding in its prisons.
As a part of realignment, amendments to § 3056 became effective on October 1, 2011. Defendants then asserted in the district court that they had been absolved by these amendments of all responsibility for violations of class members' rights while they are housed by state law in county jails.2 The district court rejected this contention in January 2012 and then again in April 2012.3 It also issued orders (“the April orders”) requiring the renewal of negotiations and the eventual dissemination to the counties of a compliance plan providing for, among other things, the tracking and monitoring of Armstrong class members housed in county jails. Defendants appealed these orders. The parties then negotiated a revised County Jail Plan (“the Plan”).
On June 27, 2012, additional amendments to § 3056 went into effect, modifying the statute to provide, inter alia, that certain parolees awaiting a revocation hearing or serving a revocation term “shall be under the sole legal custody and jurisdiction of local county facilities” 4 while housed in county jails.5 After the governorsigned the new version of § 3056 into law, defendants refused to disseminate or implement the Plan. They adhered to this view despite the district court's denial of a stay pending appeal, our denial of defendants' request for a stay pending appeal, and our subsequent denial of defendants' motion for reconsideration of that denial.
In response to defendants' refusal to cooperate and implement the Plan, the Armstrong class filed an emergency motion to enforce the district court's order. The district court exercised its power to “preserve the status quo” pending the decision of the appellate court under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 62(c) and granted plaintiffs' motion on August 28, 2012 (“the August 28 orders”). The August 28 orders essentially required defendants to disseminate and implement the Plan. Nonetheless, defendants appealed the August 28 orders, reiterating their arguments that § 3056, as amended, absolves them of any responsibility for Armstrong class members during the time in which they are housed in county jails and challenging for other reasons the district court's jurisdiction to issue those orders.6
Defendants argue that realignment divested them of authority over a subpart of the Armstrong class—those disabled parolees housed in county jails pursuant to § 3056—during the fairly brief and intermittent periods in which those class members are either awaiting a parole revocation hearing or detained due to revocation of parole. They also assert that any court-imposed duty with respect to those disabledparolees would interfere with California's prerogative to structure its internal affairs. They contend that, as a result of the changes in state law, the court may no longer order them to assist the counties with regard to the implementation of remedial actions, whether or not the state has in its possession information essential to the taking of such action. Thus, while defendants have not challenged the fact that the housing of parolees in county jails has led to widespread violations of Armstrong class members' rights under federal civil rights laws, they insist that they may no longer be ordered to take any action whatsoever that may serve to avert or alleviate such violations with respect to parolees housed in county jail pursuant to § 3056.
We consolidate defendants' appeals of the April and August 28 orders for purposes of disposition because both raise the same challenge to the scope of the injunction in light of the amendments to § 3056.7
Plaintiffs have extensively documented the ADA and Rehabilitation Act violations suffered while serving parole revocation terms or awaiting revocation hearings in county jails. These violations are systemwide and extensive. They involve the widespread denial of mobility-assistance devices to persons unable to physically function without them, the denial of hearing devices to deaf class members, and the denial of accessibility devices, such as tapping canes, to blind class members. These denials forced disabled class members into the vulnerable position of being dependent on other inmates to enable them to obtain basic services, such as meals, mail, showers, and toilets.
For their part in these violations, defendants failed to ensure that the counties knew of Armstrong class members' disabilities and failed to assist the counties with the development of appropriate disability-related policies. The vast majority of these undisputed violations could have been prevented if defendants had shared their knowledge with the county jails as to the accommodations needed by individual Armstrong class members. Those that could not have been prevented might have been cured if the class members had been afforded a grievance procedure through which they could have made defendants and the counties aware of their needs and their right to an accommodation.
The amendments to § 3056 do not relieve defendants of all responsibility for the discrimination suffered by Armstrong class members housed in county jails, past and present, or of their obligation to assist in preventing further violations.
Defendants were and remain an important player in the placement of disabled parolees in county jails without regard to the ADA compliance of those facilities. California's realignment of authority over certain parolees, including those who are disabled, to its counties has not changed this critical fact. Parole conditions are set by the state, § 3053, and violations of parole conditions are grounds for revocation. § 3000.08(f). The revocation process thus functions to enforce the state imposed parole conditions. Although courts, rather than defendants, now conduct parole revocationhearings, it is still defendants who...
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