Lock v. Jenkins

• Decision Date: 19 February 1981
• Docket Number: No. 79-1104,79-1104
• Citation: 641 F.2d 488
• Parties: Donald A. LOCK et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Leo D. JENKINS et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 488

641 F.2d 488

Donald A. LOCK et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Leo D. JENKINS et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 79-1104.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Nov. 7, 1979.

Decided Feb. 19, 1981.

Myrna Hart, Valparaiso, Ind., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Davis L. Steiner, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, Ind., for defendants-appellees.

Before FAIRCHILD, Chief Judge, CUDAHY, Circuit Judge, and DUMBAULD, Senior District Judge. ^*

FAIRCHILD, Chief Judge.

This appeal involves allegations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by plaintiffs-appellants, pretrial detainees ¹ (commonly known as safekeepers) held pursuant to state statute ² at the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City, Indiana that the conditions of their confinement violated their rights under the First, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. ³ The action dates from a pro se complaint filed by Donald A. Lock on August 12, 1975. A second amended complaint was filed with the assistance of counsel on December 23, 1975. Named as defendants in this class action are the warden and several other prison officials, two officials of the Indiana Department of Correction, and the five members of the Indiana Board of Correction. The plaintiffs sought damages and injunctive and declaratory relief. After a three-day trial on the merits, the district court ruled on December 27, 1978 ⁴ that plaintiffs had failed to prove any constitutional violation and accordingly denied relief. The plaintiffs appeal.

The district court made extensive findings of fact and conclusions of law. Appellants do not claim that any of the findings of fact is clearly erroneous. Rather, appellant urges reversal on the following grounds: (1) The conditions of confinement ⁵ taken as a whole rather than considered separately constitute violations of the safekeepers' rights to due process and equal protection; (2) Punitive seclusion was imposed upon several safekeepers without observance of procedural due process; (3) Restrictions upon visits by family members with safekeepers violated First Amendment associational rights; (4) Prison practices restricted safekeepers' access to attorneys, in violation of the First and Sixth Amendments; (5) On several occasions, correctional officers engaged in unprovoked attacks on safekeepers by the use of tear gas; and (6) Defendants' actions were taken in bad faith and therefore defendants are not immune from damages.

The test for determining the constitutionality of treatment of pretrial detainees alleged to deprive them of liberty without due process of law is "whether those conditions amount to punishment of the detainee." ⁶ Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1872, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). The judgment appealed from was entered before the United States Supreme Court decision in Wolfish. The Wolfish Court indicated that the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment is inapplicable to pretrial detainees who, unlike convicted prisoners, cannot constitutionally be subjected to punishment. ⁷ At several points in its opinion, the district court appeared to be judging the appropriateness of treatment of these safekeepers by the standards of the Eighth Amendment, while at other times the court applied the appropriate due process test for judging whether the plaintiffs' constitutional rights were violated by the conditions to which they were subjected. ⁸ "(T)he determination whether these restrictions and practices constitute punishment in the constitutional sense depends on whether they are rationally related to a legitimate nonpunitive governmental purpose and whether they appear excessive in relation to that purpose." Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 561, 99 S.Ct. at 1885.

Plaintiffs argue that the district court erred in considering each of the alleged constitutional violations separately rather than determining whether all the conditions cumulatively constitute unconstitutional treatment. This court finds it appropriate to consider together all the conditions of confinement in order to determine whether they meet the Wolfish test of amounting to punishment. ⁹

The district court made numerous findings regarding the placement of safekeepers at the prison and the time they are allowed to spend out of their cells. Most safekeepers arrive at the prison with a committing order which does not specify the reason for commitment, unless the detainee is in need of medical care. The detainees needing medical care are housed in the prison hospital. The remaining detainees are housed in the Admissions and Orientation (A & O) Unit, ¹⁰ although in the past detainees were held in other security units. The reasons for placement in the A & O Unit were that "the committing authority provides no background information thus it is safer to isolate them from the general prison population and that unit is the best possible place consistent with good safety and security not only for the detainee but for convicted inmates and staff." 464 F.Supp. at 544. The court found that the prison officials attempted to get background information about pretrial detainees from the committing courts. The prison officials do not determine where to place the detainees on the basis of individual needs but rather assign all but the medical cases to the A & O Unit. One of the factors used by prison officials in deciding to use the A & O Unit for pretrial detainees is that they are sent to the prison because they presented "some type of security, disciplinary or management problem for the committing county and thus required special security considerations to assure their presence at trial." Finding of Fact 21.

In 1975 safekeepers were allowed out of their cells two or three times weekly for two hours each time for recreation and showers. From 1976 onwards, the court found that safekeepers were allowed out of cell two hours each day. The safekeepers were treated the same as convicted persons in the A & O Unit. Outdoor recreation is allowed when weather permits. Findings of Fact 36-39, 41. The court found that "recreation ... and length of time in a cell are determined by security needs of the institution." Finding of Fact 40. The cells in A & O Unit each housed one person and measured 8 feet by 4 feet 8 inches, a total of 37 square feet. Each cell contained a bed, a toilet, and a sink which together took up 20 square feet, leaving 17 square feet for the inhabitant of the cell to move around. Safekeepers spent at least 22 hours daily in their cells and ate their meals in the cells by sitting on their beds and balancing trays on their legs. The district court concluded that housing the safekeepers in their cells twenty-two hours per day is not unconstitutional under the circumstances present here. Conclusion of Law 24. While recognizing that the two hours daily of recreation or exercise out of cells was "not ideal," the court concluded that that amount of time was sufficient to meet constitutional requirements. 464 F.2d at 551. The court never addressed itself to the size of the cells or its relationship to the amount of time out of cells.

In Bell v. Wolfish the Supreme Court found no due process violation in keeping two pretrial detainees in a cell measuring seventy-five square feet. There, the Court stressed that inmates were required to be in their cells for only seven or eight hours daily and were able to move freely between the cells and a common area for the rest of the day. The Court's reasoning in Wolfish was clearly not intended to apply to the situation here:

Respondent's reliance on other lower court decisions concerning minimum space requirements for different institutions and on correctional standards issued by various groups is misplaced.... The cases cited by respondents concerned facilities markedly different from the MCC. They involved traditional jails and cells in which inmates were locked during most of the day.... Thus, we need not and do not decide whether we agree with the reasoning and conclusions of these cases.

441 U.S. at 543-44 n. 27, 99 S.Ct. at 1867 n. 27.

The Wolfish Court recognized that "confining a given number of people in a given amount of space in such a manner as to cause them to endure genuine privations and hardship over an extended period of time might raise serious questions under the Due Process Clause as to whether those conditions amounted to punishment...." Id. at 542, 99 S.Ct. at 1875. ¹¹

In a post-Wolfish case involving overcrowding and time out of cell of pretrial detainees, this court found no due process violation. Jordan v. Wolke, 615 F.2d 749 (7th Cir. 1980). In Jordan, four pretrial detainees at the Milwaukee County Jail were housed in a cell measuring nine feet by ten feet (90 square feet). Inmates of five cells shared access to a corridor of 400 square feet and a dayroom of 335 square feet. The detainees were allowed in the corridor or dayroom sixteen hours a day. Because of the access of pretrial detainees to common areas for most of their waking hours, the Jordan court found the conditions similar to those in Wolfish and reversed the district court's injunction prohibiting the keeping of the detainees in these physical conditions:

With respect to overcrowding, we do not see a material distinction between the facts in Wolfish and the facts in the case at bar. Here, as there, detainees are required to spend only the sleeping hours in their cells and, '(d)uring the remainder of the time, ... are free to move between their rooms and the common area.' ... Although the average floor space per inmate is apparently somewhat smaller here than in Wolfish, we do not think this difference can reasonably be viewed as a basis for distinguishing that case.

615 F.2d at 753.

The Jordan court further quoted Wolfish as referring to the cell as an "admittedly rather small sleeping space...." 615 F.2d at 753, quoting Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 543, 99 S.Ct. at 1876. The factual situation in this case...