Goldsby v. Carnes, Civ. A. No. 20122-1.

• Decision Date: 08 February 1973
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 20122-1.
• Citation: 365 F. Supp. 395
• Parties: Booker GOLDSBY et al., Plaintiffs, v. Sheriff William Kenneth CARNES et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri

365 F. Supp. 395

Booker GOLDSBY et al., Plaintiffs, v. Sheriff William Kenneth CARNES et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 20122-1.

United States District Court, W. D. Missouri, W. D.

January 3, 1973.

Appendix February 8, 1973.

Allen M. Ressler, Ronald L. Roseman, Legal Aid, Kansas City, Mo., for plaintiffs.

Thomas J. Walsh, Lee's Summit, Mo., for Sheriff Carnes.

Herbert M., Kohn, Kansas City, Mo., County Counselor for Jackson County, and Tom J. Helms, Asst. County Counselor, for Jackson County.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

JOHN W. OLIVER, District Judge.

Counsel for all parties have presented and we have entered a consent judgment in this Section 1983, Title 42, United States Code, case involving the Jackson County Jail. Because of the assistance this case may render other courts dealing with questions similar to those presented in this case, we believe it appropriate to write this memorandum opinion and to direct publication of the consent judgment and the rules and regulations handbook for the Jackson County Jail which is a part of that judgment.

I.

The statute which vested this Court with jurisdiction over this case was passed by the Congress over 100 years ago. Until the Supreme Court of the United States decided Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961), and Cooper v. Pate, 378 U.S. 546, 83 S.Ct. 1733, 12 L.Ed.2d 1030 (1964), however, the jurisdiction vested by § 1983, Title 42, United States Code, was infrequently invoked in cases involving correctional institutions.

Civil rights cases by prisoners confined in state or federal correctional institutions were so few in number that they were not even separately listed by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts until 1966. From 1962 until 1966 those cases were included in a general category of other cases. In 1962, the first year we were on the bench, those cases, even when added to all state prisoner habeas corpus and all other petitions for federal relief, amounted to less than 3,000 cases throughout the entire federal court system.

The increase in prisoner cases in the past ten years, although largely unnoticed by the public media, and therefore the public, has been explosive. The current 1972 report of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts shows that 16,267 prisoner petitions were filed in federal courts last year. That figure is over 17 percent of the total number of all civil cases (96,173) filed during 1972 in all federal courts. This means that approximately every sixth case filed on the civil side of all federal courts in the country is filed by a prisoner in custody of some correctional institution. Because a high percentage of prisoner cases is appealed, the impact of these cases on the entire federal judicial system extends to all ten Courts of Appeals and to the Supreme Court of the United States itself.

One of the many difficulties in this new and expanding area of law lies in the fact that what is sometimes called the correctional system of the United States is not at all a part of a single or unified system of administration of criminal justice; it is an extremely diverse and fragmented group of separate and virtually independent number of prisons, reform schools, jails, and other detention facilities. Litigation concerning the Jackson County Jail, for example, has only precedent value in regard to the conditions of confinement which may exist in any other jail in the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States has not yet directly decided a case in which national standards have been articulated. The law is therefore in a state of relatively rapid development in the lower courts throughout the United States.

Another problem presented by prisoner litigation is the fact that, generally speaking, the general public is both uninformed and apparently disinterested in the real problems involved in regard to the control and rehabilitation of criminal offenders. The quite direct relationship between how corrections are actually administered and what is called crime on the streets is apparently disregarded or ignored. The Task Force Report on Corrections of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1967), p. 1, aptly stated that "Corrections remains a world almost unknown to law-abiding citizens, and even those within it often know only their particular corner." But prisoner cases are not going to go away; indeed, they are destined to continue to increase in volume until and unless correctional institutions recognize that federally protected constitutional rights may not be ignored.

A little over one hundred years ago the Supreme Court of Virginia stated in Ruffin v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. (21 Grath) 790, 792 (1871), that during the time a person was in criminal custody he was to be legally considered as "a slave of the State" and that, "as a consequence of his crime, he not only forfeited his liberty, but all his personal rights." The significant and substantial change in legal view induced by proper recognition of the federal constitutional questions involved is illustrated by Chief Judge Matthes' statement in Courtney v. Bishop, (8 Cir., 1969) 409 F.2d 1185 at 1187. After noting that "lawful incarceration necessarily operates to deprive a prisoner of certain rights and privileges", he added that it was now well settled that "a convict, however, does not lose all of his civil rights — for those that are fundamental follow him, with appropriate limitations, through the prison gate, and the walls do not foreclose his access to the courts to protect those rights."

Mr. Justice (then Judge) Blackmun noted in another relatively recent case, Sharp v. Sigler, (8 Cir., 1969) 408 F.2d 966, at 970, that in regard to federally protected constitutional rights, "these precepts do not stop short in their application at a prison's doors." In light of that settled law it is clear that prisoner cases will continue to be filed. It is obvious that the District Courts of the United States are under duty to apply the law as stated in the illustrative cases from which we just quoted.

II.

Because the sentences of prisoners confined in penitentiaries are longer, civil rights litigation has tended to concentrate in cases involving those institutions rather than jails. Approximately five years ago this Court tried a series of prisoner cases involving the Missouri Penitentiary at Jefferson City. Those cases, as did this case, involved alleged violations of particular prisoner's rights in regard to freedom of religion, interference with the right of free speech as it related to correspondence with persons outside the prison, violations of access to courts, violations of the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and denial of adequate medical treatment. Typical of prisoner litigation generally, the preparation and trial of those cases required the Missouri Department of Corrections to review, revise, and to put in writing the rules and regulations applicable to prisoners in the Missouri Penitentiary.

In Cupp v. Swenson, (W.D.Mo., 1969) 288 F.Supp. 1, 3, one of the cases in that series of cases, we stated:

It is clear that no court has jurisdictional power, inclination, time, or expertise to administer the normal disciplinary problems of the Missouri State Penitentiary. Such is clearly the ordinary business of the administration and employees of the Department of Corrections, subject only, so far as this Court is concerned, to the standards required by the Constitution of the United States.

But in Burns v. Swenson, (W.D.Mo., 1969) 288 F.Supp. 4, 10, we were required to state that the Task Force Report on Corrections of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1967), had then recently concluded that "correctional administrators have been slow to develop policies and procedures to guide correctional officials and protect the rights of offenders" and that in regard to some correctional institutions, particular penal administrators had offered "strong resistance to the introduction of increased legal controls in the correctional area."

We were able, however, to conclude at the close of the lengthy litigation involving the Missouri Penitentiary that through the revised rules and regulations promulgated during the course of that litigation, the Missouri Department of corrections had made substantial progress in its application of the following principle which we quoted from the Task Force Report on Corrections:

It is important that correctional administrators, who are most knowledgeable about the problems involved, develop policies and procedures which will accommodate the needs of the system as well as the interests of convicted offenders. The more adequate such internal controls are, the less it will be necessary for courts to intervene to define necessary procedures or to review the merits of correctional decisions. (p. 83).

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, whose concern and interest in the field of corrections is well known, has pointed out that we do not need to abandon or even modify existing legal procedure. In his address to the National Association of Attorneys General at Washington, D.C., on February 6, 1970, he reiterated a recommendation which has been made many times in the past when he said "What we need is to supplement it with flexible, sensible working mechanisms adapted to the modern condition of overcrowded and understaffed prisons . . . . a simple and workable procedure by which every person in confinement who has, or who thinks he has, a grievance or complaint can be heard promptly, fairly and fully."

The Task Force Report on Corrections reveals that efforts to comply with that recommendation have been meager. The Report stated:

There has so far been little consideration of the procedures appropriate for different kinds of correctional decisions. Correctional administrators should

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