Glover v. Johnson, Civ. A. No. 77-71229.
| Decision Date | 14 September 1989 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 77-71229. |
| Citation | 721 F. Supp. 808 |
| Parties | Mary GLOVER, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Perry JOHNSON, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan |
Charlene Snow and Deborah LaBelle, Detroit, Mich., for plaintiffs.
Susan Przekop-Shaw, Asst. Atty. Gen., Corrections Div., Lansing, Mich., for defendants.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
(i) Inadequate Programming at HVWF and Crane
(ii) Vocational Interest Survey Ignored
(iii) Existing Programs Function Poorly
a. HVWF
b. Crane
(i) Per Capita Expenditure
(ii) Source of Revenues
ORDER
On September 19, 1988, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued its mandate and judgment vacating my preliminary injunction order of October 20, 1986 and my order of April 17, 1987 appointing an administrator.** The court remanded the case for further factual findings regarding defendants' efforts to comply with my prior orders and for me to develop a detailed plan for remedying the equal protection violations I have already found. Glover v. Johnson, 855 F.2d 277, 288 (6th Cir.1988) ("Glover III"). This Memorandum Opinion and Order complies with the court's mandate.
Female inmates in the custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections ("Department") commenced this suit in 1977 and demanded that defendants and others, members of the Michigan Corrections Commission ("Commission"), provide them with educational and vocational opportunities comparable to those provided male inmates.*** On December 23, 1977, I certified a class action "on behalf of all female inmates in Michigan." Glover v. Johnson, 85 F.R.D. 1, 2, 7 (E.D.Mich.1977).
In 1977, Charmaine Cornish and Georgia Manzie, then inmates at Huron Valley Women's Facility ("HVWF"), filed a class action seeking declaratory judgment and damages based on alleged violations by the Department of their rights to equal protection and their right to access the courts. On March 17, 1978, I entered an order consolidating this case with Glover v. Johnson, Civil Action No. 77-71229.
After a bench trial, I found that the educational opportunities available to the Department's women prisoners were substantially inferior to those available to the Department's male prisoners; accordingly, I ruled that the Department violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. To guarantee the female inmates' right of access to these opportunities, I also found the Department obligated to provide a paralegal education course "to train female inmates to help themselves and each other in the presentation of their claims to the courts." Glover v. Johnson, 478 F.Supp. 1075, 1097 (E.D.Mich.1979) ("Glover I").
On October 25, 1979, I entered an order setting forth in general terms the remedies the Department would be required to implement and I asked that it submit a plan detailing the steps to be taken to comply with the order. Glover I at 1102-03. On April 6, 1981, after extensive negotiations between the parties and consultations with me, I entered a Final Order setting forth the remedies to be provided by the Department. Glover v. Johnson, 510 F.Supp. 1019 (E.D.Mich.1981) ("Glover II"). In addition to paralegal training, my orders require the Department to provide female inmates with post-secondary education, to implement various vocational and apprenticeship programs, to make use of off-grounds and work pass programs with eligible prisoners, to establish prison industry programs, to pay back wages to a trust fund established for the benefit of the women prisoners, and to re-evaluate and standardize the prisoner wage scale used by the Department to assure that it is applied to women fairly. Neither my 1979 nor my 1981 order was appealed from and, therefore, they are now law of the case. See Glover III at 281.
From 1981, until the issuance of my October 1986 injunction and the appointment of Dr. Richard Meisler as administrator in 1987, the major effort has been to compel compliance with Glover I and Glover II. The record of my attempts to prod compliance during these six years consumes thirteen pages of entries on the docket. Of particular note is my order of June 18, 1985 granting plaintiffs' motion for contempt with respect to the wages to be paid paralegal students at HVWF. See infra at 814-815, 829. It is significant because it is the first time, and by no means the last, that the Department has met the use, and threatened use, of my contempt power with studied indifference.
On January 22, 1986, plaintiffs brought their second motion for contempt, this time challenging broadly the Department's compliance. During the summer of 1986, I held ten days of evidentiary hearings,1 took plaintiffs' motion under advisement, and began another round of negotiations aimed at achieving compliance. These proceedings prompted the Department to arrange for Spring Arbor College ("Spring Arbor") to provide two baccalaureate courses commencing October 21, 1986. On October 16, 1986, I learned that the Department intended to provide this program only at HVWF and that qualified inmates desiring to enroll but residing at the Florence Crane Correctional Facility ("Crane") would be required to transfer to the overcrowded and higher security HVWF. After a hearing on October 20, 1986, I granted a preliminary injunction requiring the Department to provide courses at both HVWF and Crane beginning October 21, 1986. This order was not obeyed necessitating plaintiffs' third motion for contempt.
On October 31, 1986, the Department appeared to explain its failure to obey my order. It asserted that Spring Arbor was unwilling to proceed with the program at Crane. At a hearing held November 6, 1986, a representative of Spring Arbor, Paul J. Nemecek, indicated that courses could begin at Crane no earlier than January 12, 1987. I took plaintiffs' third motion for contempt under advisement.
The Department's unwillingness or inability to make progress towards implementing the programs ordered in Glover I and Glover II convinced me of the need for an independent administrator. After receiving recommendations from plaintiffs, the Department, and an advisory committee appointed by me, I named Dr. Richard Meisler as administrator.
The Court of Appeals concluded that I failed to comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a) when issuing the preliminary injunction because I did not adequately set forth factual findings supporting injunctive relief. Indeed, in its view, the record is devoid of factual findings that would justify the relief I granted. Particularly, the court said that I failed to demonstrate how denying the female inmates their right to an education would produce irreparable harm, why the harm to plaintiffs would outweigh the harm to the Department, and why plaintiffs were likely to succeed. Moreover, the court said that I failed to address the Department's contention that it is incapable of compliance. Glover III, 855 F.2d at 284.
The Court of Appeals vacated my order appointing an administrator because it found that order "directly related to" and "generated by" my injunctive order. Id. at 285. More important, it determined that my order of appointment failed to document the ...
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