Lareau v. Manson

• Decision Date: 01 June 1981
• Docket Number: No. 948,D,948
• Citation: 651 F.2d 96
• Parties: Donald J. LAREAU, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John R. MANSON, Commissioner of Correction, State of Connecticut, Defendant- Appellant. Jesus CAMPOS, James Scott, Jr., Donald J. Lareau and Clarence King, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. John R. MANSON, Commissioner of Correction, State of Connecticut, and Richard Wezowicz, Warden, Hartford Community Correctional Center, Defendants- Appellants. ocket 81-2012.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 96

651 F.2d 96

Donald J. LAREAU, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John R. MANSON, Commissioner of Correction, State of

Connecticut, Defendant- Appellant.

Jesus CAMPOS, James Scott, Jr., Donald J. Lareau and Clarence King, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. John R. MANSON, Commissioner of Correction, State of

Connecticut, and Richard Wezowicz, Warden,

Hartford Community Correctional Center,

Defendants- Appellants.

No. 948, Docket 81-2012.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued March 13, 1981.

Decided June 1, 1981.

Stephen J. O'Neill, Asst. Atty. Gen., Hartford, Conn. (Carl R. Ajello, Atty. Gen., State of Conn., Hartford, Conn., of counsel), for defendants-appellants.

Jon C. Blue, Legal Assistance to Prisoners, Hartford, Conn. (James W. Greene, Jr., Legal Assistance to Prisoners, Martha Stone, Connecticut Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Hartford, Conn., of counsel), for plaintiffs-appellees.

Aryeh S. Friedman, New York City, for amicus curiae Lawyers Committee for Intern. Human Rights.

Jerome N. Frank, Legal Services Organization, New Haven, Conn. (Renee D. Chotiner, John L. Pottenger, Jr., Stephen Wizner, Alice Bussiere, New Haven, Conn., of counsel, Miriam Berkman, Yale Law School Intern, on brief), for amici curiae Citizens for Humanizing Criminal Justice, Conn., Citizens Lobby, Criminal Justice Committee, Community Return, Inc., Criminal Justice Before FRIENDLY, MANSFIELD and KEARSE, Circuit Judges.

Program, Catholic Family Services, Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, Legal Aid Ass'n of Hartford, New York City Chapter, Nat. Lawyers' Guild, Project More, Unitarian Universalist Criminal Justice Coalition, Urban League of Greater New Haven.

MANSFIELD, Circuit Judge:

John R. Manson, Commissioner of Correction of the State of Connecticut, and Richard Wezowicz, Warden of the Hartford Community Correctional Center ("HCCC"), appeal from a judgment of the District Court for the District of Connecticut entered pursuant to a Memorandum of Decision by Judge Jose A. Cabranes, Lareau v. Manson, 507 F.Supp. 1177 (D.Conn.1980), in a class action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by HCCC inmates, finding that the overcrowded conditions at the HCCC violate the constitutional rights of pretrial detainees and of sentenced inmates incarcerated there and ordering, among other relief, a reduction in the HCCC's nighttime population to a maximum of 390 inmates, the number for which the institution was originally designed. With modification to take account of the duration of inmates' confinement under some of the challenged conditions, we affirm the district court's findings of liability with respect to both classes of prisoners. The absolute population cap order, however, is vacated and the case remanded for reconsideration of the remedy consistent with the discussion below. In the interim we direct that certain specific minimum steps be taken to eliminate immediately certain unconstitutional conditions prevailing in the HCCC.

The plaintiffs, who include both pretrial detainees and sentenced prisoners, alleged that a number of the conditions of their confinement amounted to constitutional violations. These included, in addition to the primary complaint of overcrowding, inadequacies in health care, sanitation, food, heating, recreation, counseling services and safety. The case was tried over a period of 18 days before United States Magistrate F. Owen Eagan who made two trips to the HCCC and one to the Metropolitan Correctional Center ("MCC") in Manhattan, which was the subject of the Supreme Court's decision in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), a case of manifest importance in these proceedings.

On September 19, 1980, the Magistrate filed proposed findings of fact and a recommended decision which concluded that some of the conditions complained of by the plaintiffs were serious enough to amount to punishment without due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment rights of pretrial detainees and other conditions so oppressive as to constitute cruel and unusual punishment of sentenced prisoners in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The Magistrate suggested that the defendants develop a plan to deal with the problems he had isolated. His findings were then referred to the district court, which allowed the parties to submit objections to the Magistrate's proposed findings (to which submissions the Magistrate responded) and required the defendants to submit a proposed remedial plan. Both the plaintiffs and the defendants submitted such proposed remedial orders. On November 25, 1980, the district court filed its own findings of fact which were later clarified and modified on December 19, 1980, after additional oral argument.

The district court concluded that the overcrowded conditions in the HCCC, specifically the double-bunking of cells, the overloading of dayrooms, the use of one dayroom as a dormitory and the confinement of healthy prisoners in hospital or isolation cells (sometimes with physically or mentally ill cellmates), and the failure to screen new inmates for communicable diseases, violated the constitutional rights of all the inmates. The court concluded that overcrowding was the root of most of the other complaints put forward by the plaintiffs and refused to find additional specific violations. To remedy the unconstitutionality, the court required the defendants to reduce the nighttime population of the The HCCC is a modern facility which is traditionally organized rather than structured according to the more innovative design of the MCC. It was meant to house a maximum of 390 inmates 360 in individual cells and 30 in a separate work release area. In addition there are 8 medical cells and 6 special isolation cells, none of which were intended for general housing purposes. The prison consists of 3 separate overall units known as the (1) east, (2) west, and (3) central, each of which has several floors. Each floor in turn has several "wings." The east and west units each have 3 floors, 2 of which contain 4 wings and 1 of which has 3 wings. The central unit has 2 floors with 4 wings each.

HCCC to 390 men, the capacity for which the institution was designed, and keep it at that level. The order forbids any cell sharing, placing of healthy inmates in the hospital section, or use of dayrooms for sleeping. It also requires implementation of procedures to screen new admittees for disease. The defendants' motion for a stay of this order pending appeal was denied by the district court, but then granted by us.

Thus there are 30 wings in all. Each wing consists of a corridor lined with 12 cells and 1 dayroom. The wings radiate out from one central security control "bubble" where a single correctional officer oversees all wings of each floor, supervising inmates in 36 to 48 cells. The 30 wings provide 360 individual cells known as "general population" cells and 30 dayrooms.

Each general population cell measures between 60 and 65 square feet and contains an open toilet/sink fixture, a single metal desk, a single chair and a free standing metal cot or, in 120 cells, a bunk-bed. These furnishings take up approximately 24 square feet, leaving between 36 and 41 square feet of living space. The illumination provided in each cell is insufficient to allow more than one inmate to read or write at night and the defendants claim in their proposed plan that the rewiring of these cells to enable two people to read simultaneously is "structurally and economically unrealistic if not impossible."

The dayrooms, intended to accommodate a maximum of 12 inmates for dining and 9 for recreation, vary in size from 225 to 262 square feet. Each contains a toilet, a television and a steel table with 12 built-in swinging stools. In some dayrooms stacking chairs have been added to help with the overflow.

Unanticipated delays in the construction of the state's new facility at Cheshire, Connecticut, expected to be ready for occupancy at the end of 1981, have forced the defendants to house in the HCCC prisoners in numbers far greater than the 390 it was built to hold. The figures fluctuate, but between January 7, 1980, and the date of the district court decision, the HCCC had no fewer than 500 inmates on any night. The district court found that prior to the finding of unconstitutionality, the population was expected by defendants to reach the range of 580 to 630 by December 1980. On January 29, 1981, the date of defendants' motion for a stay, the HCCC housed 548 inmates. This represented approximately a 40% excess over design capacity. At oral argument before this court on March 13, 1981, counsel for the defendants represented that, in spite of the stay, defendants had been taking steps to reduce the population and that as a result the morning "count" that day was down to 457 inmates.

The human overflow in the HCCC has been accommodated at various times in three principal ways. First and foremost, 120 of the 360 general population cells (which do not include the 30 single work release cells) have been equipped with double-bunks. Additionally, there were occasions when cells had double occupancy without the benefit even of double-bunk beds. In such cases a second mattress was put on the floor at night, almost completely eliminating even the little square footage of room for movement which is left to regularly double-bunked inmates.

Second, the defendants converted an all-purpose dayroom into a dormitory. Dubbed the "fishtank" because of its glass walls, it has housed as many as 9 men. When so filled, inmates had to crawl over one another Third, the 14 cells in the "medical unit" (8 medical cells and 6 special isolation cells), all without sufficient light to allow an inmate to read, have been used for the housing of healthy inmates who do not present discipline problems. At times these cells, though not designed for general housing of even single inmates, have been double-bunked. Indeed, healthy...