In re Pinaire, Civil Action No. 702.
| Decision Date | 20 July 1942 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 702. |
| Parties | In re PINAIRE. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas |
Glen Pinaire, in pro. per.
Joe H. Jones, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Dallas, Tex., for respondents.
The petitioner, a prisoner at the United States Public Health Service Hospital at Fort Worth, Texas, seeks his release upon an allegation that he is being punished in a cruel and unusual manner.
Such a setting and subsequent delays were indulged as afforded the petitioner ample opportunity to develop, with such witnesses as he desired, his position.
The testimony, somewhat summarized, shows that the hospital has a number of buildings and is at the present time in use not only for prisoners committed for violations of the narcotic statute, but also for four or five hundred mental patients from other sections of the country.
Probably from birth the petitioner has been nervous and his use of narcotics has added to that nervousness and produced some pathology. He had been unable to entirely adjust himself prior to the coming of the mental patients, early in May of the present year, and after that his discontent seemed to increase. He was finally removed to a wing of the building where there were no others in that immediate vicinity. That did not suit him, and a cold pack was finally ordered for him when he did not respond to certain treatments which had theretofore been effective. The cold pack was the wrapping of his nude body in a cold sheet so that no part of his flesh touched any other part of his flesh. The wrappings being between his legs and between his body and his arms, and such wrappings covering him entirely so that only his toes and his head were visible. It permitted practically no movement of the body. This wrapping was done with sheets and blankets. It is a prescribed treatment for nervousness. It is also a treatment that is dreaded by the patient. Only one such treatment was given to the petitioner.
The petitioner testified that an attendant, who participated in the pack, cursed him, and that he in turn, cursed the attendant; that the attendant was assisted by three others.
The details of the exact happenings prior to that particular moment are not exactly clear, but they seem to indicate that the petitioner was demanding an opportunity to do certain things and to be relieved of certain conditions and the attendants, acting under orders, could not allow the petitioner to do what he wished to do.
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