Costello v. Wainwright

• Decision Date: 22 May 1975
• Docket Number: 72-94-Civ-J-S.,No. 72-109-Civ-J-S,72-109-Civ-J-S
• Citation: 397 F. Supp. 20
• Parties: Michael V. COSTELLO, Roberto K. Celestineo, and all those similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Louie L. WAINWRIGHT, as Director of the Division of Corrections, et al., Defendants, United States of America, Amicus Curiae.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida

397 F. Supp. 20

Michael V. COSTELLO, Roberto K. Celestineo, and all those similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Louie L. WAINWRIGHT, as Director of the Division of Corrections, et al., Defendants United States of America, Amicus Curiae.

Nos. 72-109-Civ-J-S, 72-94-Civ-J-S.

United States District Court, M. D. Florida, Jacksonville Division.

May 22, 1975.

Tobias Simon, Elizabeth J. du Fresne, Miami, Fla., for plaintiffs.

Raymond W. Gearey, Jerry E. Oxner, Asst. Attys. Gen., Dept. of Legal Affairs, Civ. Div., Tallahassee, Fla., for defendants.

David J. W. Vanderhoof, Atty., Institutions Section Civil Rights Div., United States Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for amicus curiae.

ORDER AND PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION AND OPINION

CHARLES R. SCOTT, District Judge.

This cause came before the Court with respect to the plaintiffs' renewal of application for injunction to close prisons to additional entrants, filed herein April 21, 1975. The plaintiffs seek to have this Court close Florida's prison system to additional entrants and, in addition, require that the current inmate population be reduced to acceptable levels consistent with constitutional standards. For the reasons set forth below, the Court will require the defendants to lower the inmate population of the Division of Corrections to so-called "emergency capacity" within one year of the date of this order and preliminary injunction and to normal capacity by December 1, 1976.

I. BACKGROUND

The basic claim in these two consolidated cases may be summarized as follows: that the Florida Division of Corrections and the Florida Division of Mental Health "do not provide adequate hospital beds, ambulances, doctors, psychiatrists, nurses, psychologists, medical technicians, nor the balance of the needed personnel and equipment necessary to care for the physically and mentally ill among the prisoners in their custody; that the plaintiffs have been denied access to constitutionally acceptable medical facilities and medical personnel; that the defendants, acting under the color of law, have denied or have been unable to provide constitutionally adequate medical treatment to the plaintiffs; that the physical facilities are so grossly overcrowded as to cause deprivations of basic elements of hygiene; that as a result thereof, plaintiffs have been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States; and have been denied due process and equal protection of the laws." Amended pre-trial stipulation, filed January 13, 1975, p. 2.

The relief prayed for by the plaintiffs is as follows: (1) a mandatory reduction of the prison population to levels "which do not exacerbate the unhealthy conditions already in existence"; (2) a mandatory requirement that the plaintiffs be afforded "such medical care as will protect their lives and health"; (3) an injunction from failing to provide adequate medical care to the inmates; (4) other appropriate relief, including costs and attorneys' fees. On February 22, 1973, this Court allowed this cause to be maintained as a class action.

On February 8, 1973, prompted by a proliferation in the number of inmates committed to the custody of the Division of Corrections resulting in crisis overcrowding, the plaintiffs filed an application for preliminary injunction and a motion for partial summary judgment so as to restrain the defendants from accepting additional inmates into any of the existing institutions of the Division of Corrections pending further order of this Court. At that time, the normal capacity for the existing institutions of the Division of Corrections was seven thousand (7,000) persons with an "emergency" (as described by the defendants themselves) capacity of eighty-three hundred (8,300) inmates. The actual inmate population on February 8, 1973, was approximately ten thousand three hundred (10,300). The Lake Butler Reception and Medical Center, which was designed for seven hundred (700) inmates, actually had a population of thirteen hundred (1,300). On February 13, 1973, the Court denied the application for preliminary injunction without prejudice, on the basis that the defendant Director of the Division of Corrections, Louie L. Wainwright, had himself closed the prison system to additional inmates because of the danger to the health and lives of the inmates:

It is clear that at this time, the relief sought by the Plaintiffs' application for a preliminary injunction is moot. Therefore, this Court denies, without prejudice, the Plaintiffs' Application for a Preliminary Injunction. In so doing, this Court does not express or intimate any disposition whatsoever as to the merits of the issues raised in the Plaintiffs' Application for Preliminary Injunction . . .

Because the defendant Wainwright lifted his ban on the entry of new prisoners into the system, the plaintiffs, on March 1, 1973, renewed their application for a preliminary injunction to enjoin overcrowding in the prisons. That motion, which was renewed more than two years later, is the subject of this order and preliminary injunction.

II. THE CURRENT CRISIS

In late 1974, the defendant Wainwright, for the third time, temporarily closed the prison system to additional entrants but shortly thereafter rescinded that action under strict orders from the Governor. From December 31, 1974, to March 31, 1975, a span of only three months, the total inmate population of the Florida Division of Corrections increased from eleven thousand four hundred and twenty (11,420) to twelve thousand seven hundred and forty eight (12,748), the normal capacity being ninety-three hundred and thirteen (9,313) persons. At Lake Butler Reception and Medical Center, within the same period, the inmate population increased from eleven hundred and ninety-five (1,195) to thirteen hundred and eighty-five (1,385). On April 24, 1975, the date this Court personally inspected the Reception and Medical Center, the population at that institution stood at fourteen hundred and fifty-nine (1,459). On April 29-30, 1975, when the population at the Reception and Medical Center was fifteen hundred and fourteen (1,514), a racial disturbance broke out there which resulted in minor injuries to about twelve (12) inmates.

On May 13, 1975, the Division of Corrections, in desperation for additional housing facilities at Lake Butler Reception and Medical Center, began to house inmates in a so-called "tent city" on the athletic field adjacent to the Florida State Prison at Starke. On the basis of an ore tenus motion made at the trial on May 12, 1975, the plaintiffs seek to enjoin the use of these tents as a means of housing inmates on the grounds that those inmates are being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. For the reasons set forth in section VII of this opinion, this Court will deny this ore tenus motion.

III. THE DENIAL OF ADEQUATE MEDICAL CARE AND THE CORRELATION BETWEEN SEVERE OVERCROWDING AND THE DANGER TO THE LIVES AND HEALTH OF THE INMATES

On July 10, 1973, this Court appointed Doctor Kenneth B. Babcock¹: (1) to serve in his professional medical capacity as expert special master of this Court (along with Doctor Joseph Alderete² and others) by organizing, directing and conducting a comprehensive health services survey of all correctional institutions and road camps maintained and operated by the Division of Corrections; (2) to report his findings to the Court on the entire spectrum of health care services rendered to the inmates in custody of the Division of Corrections; and to report, as a matter of professional medical expert opinion, those remedial measures, if any, which were medically necessary to insure a minimally necessary medical program and system of health care to the inmates committed to the custody of the Division of Corrections.

The gist of the Babcock Commission Report, which was filed herein December 19, 1973, was that there existed gross systemic deficiencies in the delivery of adequate medical care to the inmates of the Division of Corrections, which deficiencies could be remedied by certain specific measures outlined in the report. On May 28, 1974, the defendants filed a response to the Babcock Report in which they concurred generally with the findings of the Babcock Commission Report and the remedies proposed therein.

In the amended pre-trial stipulation, filed herein January 13, 1975, the plaintiffs and defendants stipulated that "the Plaintiffs are not receiving such medical treatment as would be required by guidelines based upon the Babcock Report for the availability of mental and physical health care and treatment."³ The plaintiffs and defendants also stipulated "that the Babcock Commission Report as modified by the Response of the Division of Corrections describes necessary improvements to the delivery of medical services within the prison system which, if implemented, would either: (A) Create guidelines for adequate medical care (Defendants' position) or (B) Be a major factor in meeting minimal constitutional standards (Plaintiffs' position)."⁴ Most importantly for purposes of the application for preliminary injunction, the parties stipulated that "severe overcrowding may be injurious to the physical and mental health of the Plaintiffs and such overcrowding should be eliminated."⁵

The foregoing stipulation as to the link between severe overcrowding and the denial of adequate health care is based on uncontroverted expert medical opinion. In his deposition of February 8, 1975, in open court, psychiatrist Francis Gerard Walls,⁶ an employee of the defendant Division of Corrections, testified as follows (beginning at page 24 thereof):

CROSS EXAMINATION

BY MR. DEARING:

Q Dr. Walls, did I understand you correctly to respond to Ms. du Fresne's questions that it is at present with — it is your opinion, your medical opinion, professional opinion that...