Austin v. Hopper
| Decision Date | 10 August 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. CIV.A. 95-T-637-N.,CIV.A. 95-T-637-N. |
| Citation | 15 F.Supp.2d 1210 |
| Parties | Michael A. AUSTIN, Richard Elliot, Ogie Lee Hayes, Charles Orlander Guess, Warren Leatherwood, and Kervin Goodwin, Plaintiffs, v. Joe HOPPER, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama |
J. Richard Cohen, Morris S. Dees, Jr., Rhonda Brownstein, Marcia Bull Stadeker, Ellen M. Bowden, Montgomery, AL, Roy S. Haber, Roy S. Haber, P.C., Eugene, OR, for Michael A. Austin, Richard Elliot, Ogie Lee Hayes, Charles Orlander Guess, Warren Leatherwood, Kervin Goodwin, plaintiffs.
Robin Garrett Laurie, Balch & Bingham, Montgomery, AL, Edward S. Allen, N. DeWayne Pope, Balch & Bingham, Birmingham, AL, Andrew W. Redd, Albert S. Butler, Alabama Department of Corrections, Legal Div., Montgomery, AL, William P. Gray, Jr., Gray & Jauregui, Montgomery, AL, for Fob James, defendant.
Andrew W. Redd, Albert S. Butler, Kim T. Thomas, Alabama Dept. of Corrections, Legal Div., Montgomery, AL, for Joe Hopper, defendant.
In this class-action lawsuit, the plaintiffs, who are inmates in the Alabama prison system challenged the following four policies and practices employed by the prison system: (1) the use of "chain gangs"; (2) the use of "hitching posts"; (3) the denial of visitation rights to certain inmates; and (4) the failure to provide adequate toilet facilities to inmates on work squads. The plaintiffs claim that these policies and practices violated the first, fifth, eighth, and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, as enforced through 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983. The plaintiffs named the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections (hereinafter "DOC") as defendant. The subject-matter jurisdiction of the court has been properly invoked pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1331, 1343(a)(4).
This lawsuit is now before the court on the recommendation of the United States Magistrate Judge.1 In it, she recommends the following: (1) the approval of the parties' settlement of the plaintiffs' challenge to the use of chain gangs, including certification of a plaintiff class as to this claim; (2) the approval of the parties' settlement of the plaintiffs' claim that inmates on work release are not provided adequate toilet facilities; (3) the certification of a plaintiff class as to the plaintiffs' remaining two claims, the visitation-privileges claim and the hitching-post claim; (4) a holding that the denial of visitation privileges to certain inmates is constitutionally impermissible; and (5) a holding that the use of the hitching post is constitutionally impermissible.
For the reasons that follow, the court accepts the Magistrate Judge's recommendation to the following extent: (1) the chain-gang settlement is approved and a plaintiff-class certified; (2) plaintiff classes are certified as to the plaintiffs' visitation-privileges claim and their hitching-post claim; and (3) the DOC's use of the hitching post is held to be unconstitutional, albeit only as to the manner in which the hitching post is generally used. The court rejects the Magistrate Judge's recommendation as to following matters: (4) the DOC's visitation-privileges policy is not unconstitutional; and (5), at this time, the toilet-facilities settlement is not be approved. The court will, however, enter a supplemental order setting forth the procedures necessary for the court to approve the toilet-facilities agreement.
The court makes a "de novo determination upon the record, or after additional evidence, of any portion of the magistrate judge's disposition to which specific written objection has been made." Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b); 28 U.S.C.A. § 636(b)(1). The court "may accept, reject, or modify the recommended decision, receive further evidence, or recommit the matter to the magistrate judge with instructions." Id.; see also United States v. Raddatz, 447 U.S. 667, 673-84, 100 S.Ct. 2406, 2411-16, 65 L.Ed.2d 424 (1980).
On May 3, 1995, the DOC Commissioner implemented a "chain gang" prison labor policy.2 Pursuant to this policy, inmates assigned to a chain gang were shackled by leg irons in groups of five; they were separated with eight feet of chain between them. The inmates, who were required to wear white uniforms with "CHAIN GANG" printed in black, were then taken to public highways or work sites on DOC property where they performed manual labor in ten-hour shifts.3 One to two corrections officers supervised 25 to 40 inmates, who remained shackled to each other throughout the day, including during mealtime.4 The type of work the inmates performed included cutting grass, picking up litter, and breaking apart rocks.
Although unused for the past 30 years, chain gangs have a long, sordid history in the State of Alabama. During the Reconstruction era, chain gangs provided an alternative to rebuilding the penal institutions that were destroyed during the Civil War; they also served as a cheap form of labor. The majority of these chain-gang inmates, who died at enormously high rates due to the brutal conditions, were African-Americans. See Lynn M. Burley, History Repeats Itself in the Resurrection of Prisoner Chain Gangs, 15 Law & Ineq. 127, 129-130 (1997) (). Chain gangs were later incorporated into the convict-lease system, whose atrocities have been well-documented. See, e.g., C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South: 1877-1913 214-215 (1951) ("For the Southern convict-lease system a modern scholar can `find parallel only in the persecutions of the Middle Ages or in the prison camps of Nazi Germany.'") (citations omitted); Benno Schmidt, Principle and Prejudice: The Supreme Court and Race in the Progressive Era. Part 2: The Peonage Cases, 82 Colum. L.Rev. 646, 651 (1982) () (citations omitted). Although the DOC's modern version of the chain gang differs in many respects from these earlier models, the return of chain gangs to Alabama's roadsides has provoked much concern from commentators, as well as jurists, about reviving a practice with such heinous roots. See, e.g., Alabama v. Engler, 85 F.3d 1205, 1210 (6th Cir.1996) (Jones, J., concurring) ).
The purpose behind the reinstatement of the chain gang was, as stated in a form distributed to the inmates assigned to the chain gang, to send the inmates a message: "If you are worried about the Chain Gang, then don't violate parole, commit crimes, or come to prison in ALABAMA."5 However, no uniform policy in the Alabama prison system was used to determine prisoner eligibility for chain-gang placement. Some prisons assigned only repeat offenders and parole violators to the chain gang. Other institutions used the chain gang as a means of punishing inmates who committed disciplinary violations.6 In addition, Alabama trial judges were permitted to sentence inmates to placement on a chain gang as a part of a split-sentence. These sentences could range from 30 to 180 days.7 The length of an inmate's assignment to the chain gang, whether it was imposed through sentencing or a DOC classification, could be extended depending on the inmate's behavior during the assignment. The "orientation" form for the Holman Correctional Facility explains the reassignment system as follows:
8
The plaintiffs' chief claim in their original complaint was that Alabama's use of chain gangs violated the eighth and fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution. The claim encompassed two distinct sets of allegations: the first set related specifically to the increased risk of exposure to physical harm associated with accidents and inmate violence; the second included more general allegations concerning the physical and psychological harm inflicted by the use of chains that render the practice barbarous and inhumane. As part of the first set of claims, the plaintiffs alleged the following: (1) that the location of the gangs — alongside the highway — placed inmates at risk of being hit by a car, and further, that if an automobile accident did occur, the inmates were more likely to be hit or dragged by virtue of being chained together; (2) that the chains increased the likelihood of inmate-on-inmate violence because of the frustration inmates experienced while on the chain gang, and the chains rendered them unable to protect themselves should such...
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