Langton v. Johnston

• Decision Date: 08 November 1990
• Docket Number: 90-1269 and 90-1270,Nos. 89-2052,s. 89-2052
• Citation: 928 F.2d 1206
• Parties: William LANGTON, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. Philip JOHNSTON, et al., Defendants, Appellees, John Bruder, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants. John BRUDER, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Philip JOHNSTON, et al., Defendants, Appellees. John BRUDER, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Philip JOHNSTON, et al., Defendants, Appellants. . Heard:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 1206

928 F.2d 1206

William LANGTON, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. Philip JOHNSTON, et al., Defendants, Appellees, John Bruder, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants.

John BRUDER, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Philip JOHNSTON, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

John BRUDER, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Philip JOHNSTON, et al., Defendants, Appellants.

Nos. 89-2052, 90-1269 and 90-1270.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Heard: Nov. 8, 1990.

Decided: March 22, 1991.

Joseph J. Wadland, with whom Charles Donelan, Katherine E. Perrelli, and Day, Berry & Howard were on brief, Boston, Mass., for plaintiffs, appellants.

Eric J. Mogilnicki, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom James M. Shannon, Atty. Gen., was on brief, Boston, Mass., for defendants, appellees.

Before BREYER, Chief Judge, SELYA, Circuit Judge, and LAGUEUX ^*, District Judge.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs, representatives of a class consisting of patients at a state institution, the Bridgewater, Massachusetts Treatment Center for Sexually Dangerous Persons (the Treatment Center), assail the conditions of their confinement. The defendants are all state officials, including the Secretary of Human Services, the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health (DMH), the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections (DOC), and the superintendent of the Bridgewater State Prison. Three Treatment Center officials, Ian Tink, Dennis McNamara, and Michael Stevens, are also named defendants. The plaintiffs appeal from the district court's refusal to hold defendants in contempt of certain preexisting decrees and from the court's denial of equitable redress. Additionally, both sides challenge the court's order regarding attorneys' fees. ¹

Having followed the threads of the parties' variegated arguments through the cumbersome record, we affirm the district court's judgment on the merits but vacate the fee award.

I. INTRODUCTION

In 1987, appellants filed an amended complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts claiming that defendants had violated two prior consent decrees and the federal Constitution. Charging an institutional failure to provide adequately for the plaintiff class, appellants sought the appointment of a receiver or a wholesale release of inmates (some to be discharged into society and the rest transferred to state prison, depending on their individual circumstances). The district court consolidated plaintiffs' case with an earlier complex of cases challenging the Treatment Center's sequestration procedure and practices. See generally Pearson v. Fair, 808 F.2d 163 (1st Cir.1986) (per curiam) (describing Pearson litigation); King v. Greenblatt, 489 F.Supp. 105 (D.Mass.1980). The cases were tried sequentially before Judge Mazzone in the spring of 1989 and were resolved in a single opinion. In a later opinion, Judge Mazzone awarded partial attorneys' fees to the plaintiffs. Neither rescript has been published.

Appeals were taken in all cases. We consolidated the matters for oral argument. Unlike the court below, however, we prefer to write separately about each set of appeals. This opinion will focus on the so-called Bruder appeals, the titles of which are delineated in the caption. The Bruder appeals primarily involve adequacy of treatment and matters ancillary thereto. We will address the so-called Pearson appeals, which deal principally with sequestration issues, in a later opinion.

II. THE ANATOMY OF THE TREATMENT CENTER

In an effort to bring perspective to the mass of issues, we believe it helpful to sketch an overview of the Treatment Center and its purposes.

A. The Statutory Framework for Commitment.

Under Massachusetts law, a sexually dangerous person (SDP) is

any person whose misconduct in sexual matters indicates a general lack of power to control his sexual impulses, as evidenced by repetitive or compulsive sexual misconduct by either violence against any victim, or aggression against any victim under the age of sixteen years, and who, as a result, is likely to attack or otherwise inflict injury on such victims because of his uncontrolled or uncontrollable desires.

Mass.Gen.L. ch. 123A, Sec. 1 (1986). The DMH is directed to establish and maintain a facility for the "care, custody, treatment and rehabilitation" of such persons. Id. at Sec. 2. A proceeding to determine whether an individual should be committed as sexually dangerous can be initiated in any of three ways: upon motion of the state trial court or commonwealth (following conviction for some specified sexual offense), id. at Sec. 4; at the request of the head of a correctional facility (following sexually assaultive behavior on an inmate's part while in custody), id. at Sec. 6; or upon voluntary application, id. at Sec. 7. ²

Although the preliminary steps differ with respect to different classes of involuntary initiates, ³ the adjudicative processes for determining SDP status are largely the same. First, the individual is committed to the Treatment Center for a period of up to sixty days and examined by two qualified specialists. Id. at Secs. 4, 6. During this period, the examiners submit a report and recommend a disposition. Id. If the report does not "clearly indicate" sexual dangerousness, no further proceedings are conducted and the individual is not sent to the Treatment Center. See id. at Secs. 5, 6. If, however, the report "clearly indicates" that the individual is an SDP, the matter goes before the state superior court. Id. at Sec. 5. If the court concludes, after a hearing, that the commonwealth has carried the burden of proving sexual dangerousness beyond a reasonable doubt, see Commonwealth v. Walsh, 376 Mass. 53, 55, 378 N.E.2d 1378 (1978) (discussing burden of proof), it can then "commit such person to the center ... for an indeterminate period of a minimum of one day and a maximum of such person's natural life." Mass.Gen.L. ch. 123A, Sec. 5. Whichever route is followed, the Treatment Center has no authority to reject placements. It is similarly without authority to expel patients who obstruct, ignore, or resist available treatment, or to remit such patients to any other facility.

Before 1986, chapter 123A did not allow the superior court to sentence a defendant and commit him to the Treatment Center. Rather, the court had to impose the commitment in lieu of sentencing. Hence, if Once committed, a patient remains at the Treatment Center until the superior court determines that he is no longer an SDP. Mass.Gen.L. ch. 123A, Sec. 9 (Supp.1990). A patient may file a petition for release once a year, although the DMH may file such a petition at any time. Id. The commonwealth receives, and often uses at judicial hearings, reports issued by the Restrictive Integration Review Board (RIRB). The RIRB is composed of three Treatment Center staffers and three outside clinicians. Its primary duty is to evaluate, no less than annually, each patient committed to the Treatment Center in order to determine the progress of therapy and the advisability of permitting him to reenter the outside community on a limited basis. See id. at Sec. 8.

the referral stemmed from a criminal conviction, the commitment would become, in effect, a part of the individual's sentence. If the referral originated in the course of an individual's imprisonment, or after 1986, the criminal sentence would run concurrently with the individual's confinement at the Treatment Center. See Mass.Gen.L. ch. 123A, Sec. 5. ⁴

At a release hearing, the commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the patient is still sexually dangerous. Walsh, 376 Mass. at 55, 378 N.E.2d 1378. If the commonwealth does not carry the devoir of persuasion, the petitioner, depending on the status of his original conviction, is either released unconditionally or transferred to DOC custody. See Mass.Gen.L. ch. 123A, Sec. 9.

B. The Patient Population.

The Treatment Center population consists exclusively of involuntarily committed males. Every inmate has been convicted of a sexual offense identified by Massachusetts law as indicative of compulsive sexual behavior. The typical accrued duration of stay is around ten years. Approximately 50% of the patients were committed following convictions for child molestation and the remainder were committed after being convicted of rape. In March 1989, there were 286 patients in custody. Their ages ranged from 20 to 78. The class in this case comprises 264 indefinitely committed patients (a figure which excludes the 22 persons who were being held for temporary observation).

The class is divided into two subclasses: those who do, and do not, labor under the added weight of unexpired criminal sentences. The first subclass, numbering 191 men, can be further divided: 75 of the members were parole-eligible at time of trial while the remaining 116 were not. As to those persons who were sentenced before arriving at the Treatment Center, 30 were serving life sentences. The average length of sentence referable to the non-lifers is about 15 years. The second subclass, 73 in number, can also be divided along a more sharply defined axis: 27 men were never sentenced because their convictions and commitments occurred prior to 1986, whereas the other 46 were originally given criminal sentences which expired before March of 1989.

III. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

For purposes of our preliminary discussion, we examine the record from two perspectives. The gravamen of the plaintiffs' claims is the defendants' alleged noncompliance with the dictates of the decrees previously entered in the so-called Williams cases. We limn these agreements and succinctly summarize the litigation that produced them. We then turn to the present litigation.

A. The Earlier Litigation.

In November 1972, patients at the Treatment Center filed a federal court complaint alleging that living conditions and programs were "substantially inferior to those existing at...