Laube v. Haley, CIV.A. 02-T-957-N.

• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama
• Writing for the Court: Myron H. Thompson
• Citation: Laube v. Haley, 242 F.Supp.2d 1150 (M.D. Ala. 2003)
• Decision Date: 29 January 2003
• Docket Number: No. CIV.A. 02-T-957-N.,CIV.A. 02-T-957-N.
• Parties: Linda LAUBE, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Michael HALEY, et al., Defendants.

242 F.Supp.2d 1150

Linda LAUBE, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Michael HALEY, et al., Defendants.

No. CIV.A. 02-T-957-N.

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division.

January 29, 2003.

Stephen B. Bright, Tamara H. Serwer, Marion D. Chartoff, Lisa Kung, Southern Center for Human Rights, Atlanta, GA, John A. Russell, III, Aliceville, AL, for plaintiffs.

Ellen Ruth Leonard, Office of Atty. Gen., Montgomery, AL, William F. Addison, Andrew W. Redd, Ala. Dept. of Corrections, Legal Div., Montgomery, AL, for Michael Haley, Gladys Deese, Patricia Hood, Mary Carter, defendant.

Michael M. Shipper, Miller, Hamilton, Snider & Odom, Mobile, AL, Hugh C. Nickson, III, Miller, Hamilton, Snider & Odom, Montgomery, AL, Gile G. Perkins, Miller Hamilton Snider & Odom, LLC, Birmingham, AL, for NaphCare, Inc., Francis Henderson, defendants.

Edward A. Hosp, James V. Doyle, Jr., Office of Governor, Montgomery, AL, for Don Siegelman, defendant.

ORDER

MYRON H. THOMPSON, District Judge.

The complaint in this lawsuit charges that conditions for female inmates in the Alabama State Prison System violate the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The plaintiffs are female inmates incarcerated in three state prison facilities; the defendants are various officials of the State of Alabama and its Department of Corrections. On December 2, 2002, this court preliminarily enjoined the defendants from continuing to operate Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in an unconstitutionally unsafe manner. Laube v. Haley, 234 F.Supp.2d 1227, 1253 (M.D.Ala. 2002). The defendants were ordered to file a plan that redressed immediately and fully the unconstitutional conditions at Tutwiler. Id. The defendants filed a proposed plan on December 30, 2002, and the plaintiffs responded on January 15, 2003.¹ The court heard oral arguments on the defendants' proposed plan on January 21, 2003. For the reasons that follow, the court concludes that the defendants' plan is inadequate.

The defendants' plan is inadequate in two substantial respects. First, the defendants have requested relief that the court has no authority to grant. They have requested, as part of their plan to reduce overcrowding, that this court temporarily restrain or prohibit the transfer of female inmates from county jails to Tutwiler. As the plaintiffs have correctly noted, this relief is beyond the authority of this single-judge court. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, only a three-judge panel may issue "prisoner release orders" and only in certain circumstances. 18 U.S.C.A. § 3626(a)(3). Because a "prisoner release order" is "any order ... that directs the release from or nonadmission of prisoners to a prison," 18 U.S.C.A. § 3626(g)(4), the relief the defendants seek constitutes a "prisoner release order" as defined by the statute. Therefore, this single-judge court may not enter the order sought by the defendants.

Furthermore, the defendants themselves do not otherwise have the power to restrain the transfer of female inmates from county jails to Tutwiler. The defendants in this case are involved in state-court litigation concerning the backlog of state inmates housed in county jails across the State. In an action styled Barbour County v. Haley, CV-92-388-S, now pending in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Alabama, a class of Alabama counties has sued Corrections Department officials to have state prisoners removed from county jails. The state court in Barbour has ordered these officials to accept state-ready inmates sent from various county jails in Alabama. The actions and efforts of Corrections Department officials to block the transfer of state-ready female inmates from county jails to Tutwiler, as has been suggested in this federal litigation, would be in direct contradiction to the state-court order.

Therefore, neither this court, nor the defendants on their own initiative, may restrain the transfer of female inmates to Tutwiler. Because this part of the defendants' plan was a key element, and because it is not viable, the defendants should modify and adjust their plan with new and substantial measures to achieve the same ultimate goal of redressing the unconstitutional conditions at Tutwiler, albeit now by different means.

The defendants' proposed plan is also inadequate because they indicated at the January 2003 oral argument that their proposed remedial measures are constrained by the fact that they lack...