Knop v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 10 August 1987
• Docket Number: No. G84-651.,G84-651.
• Citation: 667 F. Supp. 467
• Parties: Gary KNOP, John Ford, William Lovett, II, Ramando Valeroso, Gus Jansson, Pat Sommerville, Vernard Cohen, T. Jon Spytma, Robert Shipp, Butch Davis, Ron Mixon, and Kerwin Cook, individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Perry M. JOHNSON, Robert Brown, Jr., Dale Foltz, John Jabe, Theodore Koehler, John Prelesnik, and Jack Bergman, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

667 F. Supp. 467

Gary KNOP, John Ford, William Lovett, II, Ramando Valeroso, Gus Jansson, Pat Sommerville, Vernard Cohen, T. Jon Spytma, Robert Shipp, Butch Davis, Ron Mixon, and Kerwin Cook, individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Perry M. JOHNSON, Robert Brown, Jr., Dale Foltz, John Jabe, Theodore Koehler, John Prelesnik, and Jack Bergman, Defendants.

No. G84-651.

United States District Court, W.D. Michigan, S.D.

August 10, 1987.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Elizabeth Alexander, Adjoa Aiyetoro & Nkechi Taifa-Caldwell National Prison Project, Washington, D.C., Patricia Streeter, Detroit, Mich., for plaintiffs.

Thomas Nelson, Brian McKenzie, David Edick, Michigan Office of the Atty. Gen., Lansing, Mich., for defendants.

OPINION

ENSLEN, District Judge.

This is a prison case that concerns conditions of confinement at four major prisons in the Michigan system. It is a class action proceeding in which the plaintiff class is composed of all prisoners who are or will be confined by the Michigan Department of Corrections at the State Prison of Southern Michigan ("SPSM"), located in Jackson, Michigan; the Michigan Reformatory ("MR"), located in Ionia, Michigan; the Riverside Correctional Facility ("RCF"), also located in Ionia, Michigan; and the Marquette Branch Prison ("MBP") (including the former Michigan Intensive Programming Center ("MIPC"), which now is designated as A-Block of the MBP), located in Marquette, Michigan.

The defendants in the case are the Director of the Michigan Department of Corrections ("MDOC"), who now is Robert Brown, Jr.; the Deputy Director of the MDOC and the Director of the Bureau of Correctional Facilities, who now is Daniel Bolden; the Warden of the State Prison of Southern Michigan, who currently is John Jabe and who for most of the relevant time period was Dale Foltz; the Warden of the Michigan Reformatory, who currently is Pamela Withrow and who for most of the relevant time period was John Jabe; the Administrator of the Reception and Guidance Center, John Prelesnik; the Warden of the Marquette Branch Prison, Theodore Koehler; and the Warden of the Riverside Correctional Facility, who currently is Denise Quarles and who for part of the relevant time period was William Abshirer. Pursuant to Rule 25(d)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, new defendants automatically have been substituted for original defendants as they have succeeded them in office. The Court notes here that although Jack Bergman was named as a defendant in his former capacity as the Administrator of the MIPC, he effectively has been dropped from the action because the MIPC has been converted into A-Block of the MBP, under the control of Warden Koehler.

In their first amended complaint, filed on April 16, 1985, plaintiffs raised numerous grounds for relief against defendants. On March 20, 1986 the Court severed the following four issues for immediate trial: (1) whether the lack of toilets and washbasins in certain locked cells at the RCF violates plaintiffs' Eighth Amendment right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment; (2) whether defendants' alleged failure to provide plaintiffs with proper winter clothing also violates their Eighth Amendment right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment; (3) whether defendants engage in racially discriminatory actions concerning job assignments, cafeteria serving lines, and the placement of inmates in administrative segregation, punitive detention, and protective custody in violation of plaintiffs' Fourteenth Amendment right to the equal protection of the law; and (4) whether defendants are unlawfully interfering with plaintiffs' constitutional right of access to federal and state court systems. This last issue includes the issue of whether defendants' system for handling inmates' incoming legal mail is constitutional. On May 14, 1986 the Court declined to sever for immediate trial plaintiffs' claim that defendants are not providing them with constitutionally adequate mental health care because it has conducted numerous hearings on that issue in connection with the Consent Decree entered in the related case of United States v. Michigan, No. G84-63 (W.D.Mich.).

After numerous pretrial motions, hearings, and other skirmishes between the parties, many of which Magistrate Rowland handled, the Court conducted a thirty-five day bench trial on the severed issues that was spread over five months: June 1986, August 1986, October 1986, March 1987, and April 1987. During the trial it listened to testimony from 103 witnesses — seventy-eight for the plaintiffs and twenty-five for the defendants — and received hundreds of exhibits into evidence. There remain some unresolved evidentiary motions that I will decide when I discuss the substantive issue to which the evidence pertains. In accordance with Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the following opinion constitutes the Court's findings of fact and conclusions of law on the severed issues.

Introduction to the Case

The prisoners who have brought this action are confined in Michigan's oldest and largest prisons. The Marquette Branch Prison, which is located in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, far away from the State's major population centers, is both a maximum security and a minimum security facility. The maximum security inmates are housed inside the walls of the prison. The inside prison has a rated capacity of 606 inmates, which is broken down into three groups: 249 administrative segregation cells; 262 cells for inmates in the general population group; and 95 protective custody cells. The administrative segregation units of the prison house the system's most difficult to manage inmates and is predominately black. Pls. Exh. 510B. The prison also has a trustee division, which houses the minimum security inmates and currently is predominately white. Pls. Exh. 521A. The staff of the institution is overwhelmingly white. Pls.Exh. 521Q; Transcript ("T") of 3-16-87 at 12. The protective custody unit, which used to be the MIPC, also is predominately white, although it is more evenly divided between black inmates and white inmates than the rest of the institution. T of 3-17-87 at 93.

The systems' largest facility is the State Prison of Southern Michigan, which is located in Michigan's Lower Peninsula near the major population centers of Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Detroit. The SPSM currently is composed of three complexes: the central complex, the south complex, and the north complex. The central complex houses close custody inmates, which is the security level just below maximum security, and includes inmates confined to administrative segregation and protective custody. Inmates confined in the central complex are involved in this case only on the racial discrimination claim. The north complex is a medium security facility, while the south complex is a minimum security facility. The inmates confined in the central complex are overwhelmingly black; the racial compositions of the south and north complexes are more evenly divided between black inmates and white inmates.

The Michigan Reformatory and the Riverside Correctional Facility also are located in Michigan's Lower Peninsula. The MR houses both minimum security and close custody inmates. The minimum security inmates are housed in the institution's trustee division. The close custody inmates are housed inside the walls of the institution, are primarily if not exclusively under the age of twenty-five, and are predominately black. The RCF is located near the Reformatory and contains four housing groups that are relevant to this case: protective custody, administrative segregation, general population, and inmates going through reception or quarantine. Some of the cells in this institution do not have a toilet or washbasin inside the cell. Located in the same group of buildings as the RCF is the Riverside Psychiatric Center ("RPC"), which also contains some cells that do not have a toilet or washbasin within the cell.

The Court will divide its discussion of the severed issues into five parts: (1) legal mail; (2) lack of adequate winter clothing; (3) lack of in-cell toilets and washbasins at the RCF and the RPC; (4) access to courts; and (5) racial discrimination. Following my discussion of the substantive issues, I will briefly discuss for the benefit of the parties the appealability under rule 54(b) and 28 U.S.C. § 1292 of my judgments on those issues. Since plaintiffs' claims generally implicate different constitutional provisions, I will discuss the applicable legal standards in connection with each substantive claim rather than in a general discussion at this point in the opinion. The Court does observe that one overriding standard it has considered and applied throughout this opinion is the substantial deference it must give state prison officials, who have the difficult task of determining how to run their institutions. See Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 404-05, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 1807, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974). Due to considerations of comity and federalism, a federal court should hesitate to interfere in the operation of state prison systems, and should do so only when necessary to protect the constitutional rights of inmates. See Kendrick v. Bland, 740 F.2d 432, 437-39 (6th Cir.1984). If a constitutional violation does exist, however, then it unquestionably is the Court's duty to remedy it. See Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 352, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 2402, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981).

Rulings on the Severed Issues

I. Plaintiffs' Legal Mail Claim

The Court will divide its discussion of plaintiffs' legal mail claim into three parts. First, I will discuss the applicable legal standards. Secondly, I will discuss defendant's system of providing privileged treatment for inmates' incoming legal mail. Finally, I will discuss whether defendants' system is unconstitutional in any respect.

Inmates retain "all ...