Gates v. Collier, GC 71-6-K.

• Decision Date: 31 October 1975
• Docket Number: No. GC 71-6-K.,GC 71-6-K.
• Parties: Nazareth GATES et al., Plaintiffs, v. John COLLIER et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi

407 F. Supp. 1117

Nazareth GATES et al., Plaintiffs, v. John COLLIER et al., Defendants.

No. GC 71-6-K.

United States District Court, N. D. Mississippi, Greenville Division.

October 31, 1975.

Roy S. Haber, Boulder, Colo., Paul S. Lawrence, Dept. Justice, Washington, D. C., David M. Lipman, Jackson, Miss., for plaintiffs.

P. Roger Googe, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, Miss., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM ORDER

KEADY, Chief Judge.

This suit began as a multifaceted constitutional attack on conditions of confinement at the Mississippi State Penitentiary (familiarly known as Parchman) by a plaintiff class of penitentiary inmates. The United States subsequently entered the case as plaintiff-intervenor. In October 1972, we issued our initial findings and decree¹ specifying and enjoining a variety of unconstitutional practices and conditions and have since followed with numerous implementing rulings on various aspects of Parchman's operation.

On December 13, 1974, the private plaintiffs, dissatisfied with the pace of improvements at the prison, moved for further relief, alleging that the defendant prison officials had failed to comply with our earlier orders in several material respects. In January 1975, a three-day evidentiary hearing was held on plaintiffs' motion and the entire Parchman situation thoroughly reexamined. From comprehensive evidence presented at that hearing, the court found that "substantial progress has been made toward removing or eliminating, if not in whole then certainly in great part, many of the nefarious practices and conditions which this court found to exist in 1972."² Indeed, the remarkable progress made in virtually every area of our earlier constitutional concerns left only two significant problems whose resolution had either not already occurred or was not assured.

These remaining problem areas were, first, that Parchman officials had not yet provided inmates with constitutionally acceptable medical services. Needed were a new hospital facility and two additional doctors, one a psychiatrist and the other a chief medical officer. Secondly, the court found that, as in 1972, "many if not most of the aged housing units continue to remain, in appalling, deplorable condition unfit for human habitation." 390 F.Supp. at 489. Overcrowding of inmates was also found to contribute to the acute housing problem. To remedy these conditions, defendants were ordered to "establish a time-table for and proceed to implement (a) adequate medical facilities and services, and (b) the reduction of overcrowding of prison inmates at residential camps as well as the elimination of those residential camps unfit for human habitation." 390 F.Supp at 490.

After submission of remedial plans by the defendants, we conducted an evidentiary hearing on the constitutional sufficiency of the proposals. At this hearing in August 1975, defendants submitted detailed architectural plans for the construction of a $3.5 million medical-dental facility which the court found would fully meet constitutional requirements. Construction is contingent upon legislative appropriations being granted at the 1976 session of the state legislature, which will convene in two months. Defendants also reported progress in securing additional medical personnel, having employed a full-time psychiatrist for treatment of the prison population. Despite extensive efforts, defendants had not secured the services of a chief medical officer, but reported that alternate arrangements had been made with a number of nearby private physicians, who had agreed to provide inmate medical treatment. The court accepted this solution as temporarily satisfactory until another full-time physician could be employed.

With respect to Parchman's housing problem, defendants submitted uncontradicted data revealing that although the present inmate population numbered 2260, only 2094 inmates could be housed in existing housing units without unconstitutional overcrowding. The court determined that the failure to provide a minimum of fifty square feet of barracks living space per inmate would result in such overcrowding. The evidence established that new construction now underway would, within the next year, add housing space for 631 additional inmates under sanitary, constitutional conditions; new housing units already completed and occupied provide 300 inmates with modern living conditions. Further, since our original 1972 decree, important renovative work had been performed on some of the older residential camps; general sanitation and sewerage had also measurably improved. These efforts had ameliorated, but did not finally resolve, the constitutional deficiencies in inmate housing.

To remedy overcrowding of inmates as well as to deal with the more serious problem of dilapidated housing, the court proceeded to order the closing of six old residential camps on a specified timetable between July 1, 1976, and July 1, 1977.³ Concomitantly, the court placed a ceiling on the number of inmates who could be housed at each of the remaining residential camps after January 1, 1977. This ceiling had the effect of guaranteeing constitutionally adequate living space to each inmate and for practical purposes placed an embargo, effective January 1, 1977, on housing more that 2237⁴ inmates at Parchman in facilities now extant or under construction.

Now plaintiffs again move for further relief, requesting the court to accelerate the timing of the scheduled housing relief. In sum, plaintiffs seek an immediate injunction enjoining the defendants from accepting any additional prisoners into Parchman until every inmate has been provided with at least fifty square feet of barracks living space. The Department of Justice, in a departure from previous positions taken in this court, joins in the request for the foregoing relief. Plaintiffs' motion is solely based on two recent district court decisions which plaintiffs urge are here applicable. For reasons that follow, we disagree.

In McCray v. Sullivan, 399 F.Supp. 271 (M.D. and S.D.Ala.1975), District Judges Brevard Hand and Frank Johnson reviewed housing conditions in the Alabama penal system and enjoined the state from receiving at its prisons additional inmates until the prison population was reduced to levels compatible with constitutional standards. The court found that the affected institutions in Alabama had been designed to house 2212 inmates, yet the actual prison population at the date of the court's order was 3698 — or an overcrowding of approximately 67%. Coupled with this critical overcrowding and exacerbating the situation was a serious shortage of custodial staff. The court found that although 692 correctional officers were needed to maintain reasonably adequate security even in uncrowded conditions, only 383 officers — or 55% of a minimal staff — were in fact employed. The district courts of Alabama were also confronted with shocking evidence of virtually uncontrolled violent assaults by prisoners, which posed constant danger to very inmate and guard in the system.

Plaintiffs also rely on the Louisiana remedy prescribed in Williams v. McKeithen, No. 71-98 (D.La. Sept. 5, 1975). There, District Judge Gordon West found that the Louisiana penitentiary at Angola had been designed to accommodate no more than 2641 prisoners. In June 1975, 3983 prisoners were either incarcerated at the institution or enroute there. Thus, overcrowding had already attained a critical level of 49% more than capacity. Judge West also noted that the monthly increment at Angola was averaging 64 prisoners with little hope of amelioration. The prison warden conceded that it was often necessary to place two to eight prisoners in a cell designed for single occupancy. It was further found that custodial staff at Angola was seriously inadequate, and there was habitual physical violence among the inmates, which was at least partially attributable to the gross overcrowding and inadequate correctional staff. Judge West's response was to enjoin acceptance of new prisoners at Angola, excepting returning escapees and parole violators, until the prison population was reduced to manageable levels.

The critical overcrowded conditions in the Alabama and Louisiana prisons had obviously reached proportions which can only be described as barbaric, and which carried daily threats to the physical safety of large numbers of the prison population. Under the conditions found in McCray and Williams, where nearly all semblance of order and inmate protection had disappeared, and where there were no indications that the states involved were prepared to move forward to eliminate the problems, this court can readily appreciate that the drastic step of an immediate embargo on further inmate population increases would be both appropriate and necessary.

Here, however, the circumstances are substantially different. The facilities currently in use at Parchman have a designed prison capacity of 2094. As of September 23, 1975, the most recent period for which we have accurate population figures, approximately 2290 inmates were being housed in these facilities — an overcrowding of 10%. Further, this court knows the Parchman correctional staff to be disciplined and well-trained, and, although perhaps somewhat understaffed, is far better equipped to deal with inmate problems than appears to have been the case in either Alabama or Louisiana.⁵ Violence among penitentiary inmates at Parchman, while once prevalent, has now been dramatically reduced. Present conditions at Parchman, while still constitutionally unsatisfactory in several respects, are a far cry from what existed in 1972 and from what evidently obtain in our two neighboring states.

Parchman is distinguishable from the Alabama and Louisiana cases in one further respect: here, the chief problem with inmate housing, as we have already noted, is not with the overcrowding of residential camps and accompanying violence, but with...