Montoya v. Jeffreys
| Docket Number | 18 C 1991 |
| Decision Date | 25 August 2022 |
| Parties | CELINA MONTOYA, ZACHARY BLAYE, and RONALD MOLINA, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. ROB JEFFREYS, in his official capacity as Director of the Illinois Department of Corrections, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Celina Montoya, Zachary Blaye, and Ronald Molina, who all were placed on mandatory supervised release (“MSR”) following imprisonment for Illinois sex offense convictions bring this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Rob Jeffreys in his official capacity as Director of the Illinois Department of Corrections (“IDOC”), alleging that IDOC's implementation of an MSR condition prohibiting them from having contact with their minor children without prior approval violated their Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. Doc. 92. The court has entered a preliminary injunction, Doc. 33; certified a Civil Rule 23(b)(2) class as to certain claims, Doc. 165-166 (reported at 2020 WL 6581648 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 10, 2020)); and granted IDOC summary judgment as to some of the class claims. Docs. 221-222 (reported at 565 F.Supp.3d 1045 (N.D. Ill. 2021)). The court then held a bench trial on the surviving class claims. Docs. 249-252.
Pursuant to Civil Rule 52(a), the court enters the following Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. The Findings of Fact rest on the court's evaluation of the exhibits and witness testimony; unless otherwise noted, if the court cites witness testimony to support a factual finding, the court found that testimony credible. To the extent any Findings of Fact may be considered Conclusions of Law, they shall be deemed Conclusions of Law, and vice versa. After carefully considering the evidence and assessing the witnesses' credibility, the court finds that Plaintiffs have shown that: (1) IDOC unconstitutionally prohibits written contact between class members and their minor children upon their release from prison and placement on MSR; and (2) in certain circumstances, IDOC unconstitutionally conditions parent-child contact on a class member's ability to afford a polygraph examination. The court declares unconstitutional those two aspects of IDOC's policies. In all other respects, the court finds that Plaintiffs fail to show that IDOC's policies violate due process.
1. Zachary Blaye is a class representative who, while on MSR did not have permission to have any in-person contact with his minor son until January 2020. 565 F.Supp.3d at 1058.
2. Ronald Molina is a class representative who, while on MSR, was prohibited from having contact with his son until his son turned eighteen years old. Ibid.; Tr. 157:19-158:14, 166:11-166:15 (DeMauro testimony).
3. Celina Montoya is a class member who has been permitted to live at her family home with her children since August 2019. 565 F.Supp.3d at 1058.
4. Joel Mitchell is a former class member who completed his MSR term in August 2021. Tr. 506:22-504:25, 507:13-507:17 (J. Mitchell testimony).
5. Rachel Mitchell is Joel Mitchell's wife and the mother of their children. Tr. 535:21-535:25, 538:18-539:3 (R. Mitchell testimony).
6. Blaye and Molina represent a certified class comprising “all parents of minor children who are on MSR for a sex offense under IDOC supervision.” 2020 WL 6581648, at *15-16.
7. Defendant Rob Jeffreys is IDOC's Director. Doc. 147 at ¶ 6.
8. Sarah Brown-Foiles is IDOC's Manager of Sex Offender Services, a position formerly called Coordinator of Sex Offender Services. Tr. 293:24-294:13 (Brown-Foiles testimony).
9. IDOC currently employs four sex offender therapists who see persons on MSR, and it has plans to hire five more. Tr. 307:22-307:25, 359:9-359:19 (Brown-Foiles testimony).
10. Brown-Foiles supervises the IDOC-employed sex offender therapists, including Dr. Patricia Grosskopf. Tr. 400:19-400:22, 598:23-598:24 (Brown-Foiles testimony; Grosskopf testimony).
11. Brown-Foiles also supervises clinicians working towards licensure as sex offender therapists in Aurora, Illinois. Tr. 401:1-401:22 (Brown-Foiles testimony).
12. Brown-Foiles coordinates training for sex offender therapists who are not employed by IDOC; those therapists are called “community therapists.” Tr. 296:5-296:8, 341:7-341:22, 365:10-365:18, 376:24-377:23 (Brown-Foiles testimony).
13. Dr. Jerry Blain and Dr. Eleanor Harris are community therapists. Tr. 200:1-200:17 (Blain testimony; Brown-Foiles testimony); Harris Dep. (Doc. 255-2 at 3 (6:3-7:11)).
14. Dr. Peter Eisenmenger is a licensed sex offender therapist and sex offender evaluator employed by Wexford Health Sources. Eisenmenger Dep. (Doc. 255-1 at 4-5 (11:25-14:12).
15. Steven DeYoung is a parole commander employed by IDOC. He formerly was a parole agent with IDOC's Sex Offender Supervision Unit (“SOSU”). Tr. 20:13-21:5 (DeYoung testimony).
16. Joseph DeMauro is an IDOC parole agent assigned to the SOSU. Tr. 134:5-134:18 (DeMauro testimony).
17. Individuals convicted of certain offenses are subject a form of parole called mandatory supervised release (“MSR”) following their release from prison. Joint Exh. 1 at 22. For simplicity, the court also refers to MSR as “parole” and persons released on MSR as “parolees.”
18. The Illinois Prisoner Review Board imposes MSR conditions on parolees pursuant to 730 ILCS 5/3-3-7. Doc. 244 at p. 6, ¶ 1.
19. The Prisoner Review Board ordinarily imposes on parolees convicted of sex offenses an MSR condition requiring them to “refrain from all contact, directly or indirectly, personally, by telephone, letter, or through a third party, with minor children without prior identification and approval of an agent of the [IDOC].” Doc. 244 at p. 6, ¶ 2; see 730 ILCS 5/3-3-7(b-1)(9). For simplicity, the court refers to that requirement as the “no-contact condition.”
20. IDOC enforces the no-contact condition and determines the standards, criteria, and process for a parolee to obtain approval to have contact with a minor child. Doc. 244 at pp. 6-7, ¶¶ 3, 15.
21. The SOSU supervises parolees convicted of sex offenses. Doc. 244 at p. 7, ¶ 14; Joint Exh. 1.
22. A small percentage of parolees convicted of sex offenses request contact with their minor children. Tr. 35:23-36:7, 250:22-251:11, 600:8-600:13, 627:24-628:3 ().
23. IDOC provides such parolees with an information packet about the parent-child contact policy, including the process for submitting child-contact requests and appeals. Doc. 244 at p. 7, ¶ 16.; Joint Exh. 2.
24. Persons with determinate MSR terms may remain in prison for a statutorily mandated length of time rather than serve their MSR terms in a community setting. That practice is known as “maxing out.” Doc. 244 at p. 6, ¶ 4.
25. Some individuals convicted of sex offenses who are eligible for MSR choose to “max out” their MSR terms. Tr. 356:11-356:21, 529:5-530:14 (Brown-Foiles testimony; J. Mitchell testimony).
26. Sex offenders who are in prison can have contact with their minor children. Phone calls are monitored and recorded; non-attorney written correspondence is reviewed; and in-person visitation is supervised IDOC correctional officers. Tr. 83:10-84:6 (DeYoung testimony).
27. “Maxing out” thus allows some individuals whose child-contact requests have been or would be denied while on MSR to resume or continue written, telephone, and/or in-person contact with their minor children. Tr. 102:21-103:3, 529:22-530:4 (Tyree testimony; J. Mitchell testimony).
28. As relevant here, IDOC has two processes for assessing individuals convicted of sex offenses prior to their release on MSR: (a) pre-release evaluations; and (b) Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act (“SVPCA”) screening. Tr. 318:12-322:4, 378:12-386:14 (Brown-Foiles testimony).
29. Illinois law requires that a person convicted of a sex offense “receive a sex offender evaluation” prior to release from prison. Doc. 244 at p. 30-31, ¶ 9; see 730 ILCS 5/3-6-2(j).
30. IDOC refers to those evaluations as “pre-release evaluations.” Tr. 378:15-378:22 (Brown-Foiles testimony).
31. Pre-release evaluations occur six to twelve months before an individual's release from prison. Tr. 379:4 (Brown-Foiles testimony).
32. Pre-release evaluations necessarily lack information the evaluator could use to assess a parolee's stability in the community, relationship stability, employment, cooperation with supervision, and ability to adapt to stressors outside the prison environment.
Tr. 392:16-392:19, 393:5-393:9, 575:19-575:23, 592:3-594:16 (Brown-Foiles testimony; Grosskopf testimony); Eisenmenger Dep. (Doc. 255-1 at 21-22 (81:11-82:5)).
33. As a result, risk assessments conducted while a parolee is in the community are more accurate than assessments conducted prior to release. Tr. 392:10-392:19 (Brown-Foiles testimony).
34. IDOC's pre-release evaluations currently do not include any actuarial risk assessments. Tr. 381:21-381:22 (Brown-Foiles testimony).
35. Actuarial risk assessments, such as the STATIC-99 and STABLE, are not validated for use with prisoners. Tr. 613:1-613:5 (Grosskopf testimony).
36. Despite the lack of validation, IDOC uses the STATIC and STABLE assessments with prisoners seeking to enroll in sex offender therapy while incarcerated. Tr. 332:22-332:25 (Brown-Foiles testimony).
37. Because the STABLE and STATIC actuarial risk assessments are not validated for use with incarcerated persons, they would not necessarily produce accurate results if used before a prisoner's release. Tr. 612:18-613:5, 633:12-633:21 (Grosskopf testimony).
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