Morales Feliciano v. Rosello Gonzalez, No. 79-04(PG).
| Decision Date | 20 December 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 79-04(PG). |
| Citation | 124 F.Supp.2d 774 |
| Parties | Carlos MORALES FELICIANO, et al., Plaintiffs v. Pedro ROSELLOÓ GONZÁLEZ, et al., Defendants |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico |
Carlos V. Garcia-Gutierrez, San Juan, PR, Dennisse N. Longo-De-Morgan, Special Asst Atty General, Department of Justice, Office of Attorney General, Manuel A. Rodriguez-Banchs, San Juan, PR, for Plaintiffs.
Rick Nemcik-Cruz, Rio Grande, PR, for Defendants.
The long and unfortunate history of this case is well known to the parties and need not be discussed at length here. The immediate issue at bar concerns whether Defendants should be held in contempt for violating Court Orders concerning the usage of admission cells and the filing of a court notice and staffing report for new facilities. A short discussion of how the issue was brought to the Court's attention and some pertinent history follows.
The Court first dealt with overcrowding in the Administration of Correction's institutions twenty years ago when it issued its preliminary injunction governing prison conditions. Feliciano v. Barcelo, 497 F.Supp. 14 (D.P.R.1979). Before that decision was entered, a number of cases had been litigated and settled in this Court and resulted in contempt proceedings for noncompliance: negotiations with plaintiffs' court-appointed counsel averted the sanctions sought for contempt. Feliciano, 497 F.Supp. at 16-17, n. 2. The first hearings in this case resulted in a preliminary injunction ordering relieve of the uncontrolled overcrowding that prevailed in AOC institutions.
In 1986, the court issued an Opinion and Order, Morales Feliciano v. Romero Barcelo, 672 F.Supp. 591 (D.P.R.1986), aff'd 887 F.2d 1 (1st Cir.1989), in which the court evaluated compliance with the 1980 Preliminary Injunction:
The Court must regrettably find, however, that the defendants have all too frequently offered the appearance of compliance with its decree as a substitute for obedience, the laws of the Commonwealth have been ignored by administrators (at all levels) who disobey in silence, and vast sums of money, whose expenditure has been repeatedly proffered to the Court as evidence of reformation, have been wasted without bringing about any substantial and enduring change in the reality of daily life in Puerto Rico's prisons. What little has been done, the Court finds, is only the result of the Court's prior intervention ...
Morales Feliciano v. Romero Barcelo, 672 F.Supp. at 594.
As to overcrowding, this Court stated that "[a]s the Court visited each institution the sense of physical closeness and the revulsion at so much compressed humanity grew to an awareness of the psychological stress which must affect any human being almost totally deprived of any privacy or intimacy." Morales Feliciano v. Romero Barcelo, 672 F.Supp. at 597.
In 1986, Plaintiffs filed a motion to hold defendants in contempt for their failure to obey the overcrowding reduction orders in the Preliminary Injunction. Defendants again escaped being held in contempt by entering into a stipulation with Plaintiffs. This stipulation imposed a time limitation on admission cell usage. See Stipulation dated September 8, 1986 (further discussed bellow).
By 1990 the detention cells, holding pens, and admission cells were again the subject of controversy1. On 22 February 1990, the Court ordered the Court Monitor to recommend maximum capacities for each admission cell not specifically addressed in the 1986 Stipulation. This led to the Court Monitor's 107th Report, which reported the capacities of the then-existing admission cells, detention cells, and holding pens. Relying on the defendants' own capacity estimates, the court monitor set a 16.9 square foot capacity for future cells and pens.
After a change in equitable defendants on January 2, 1993, Plaintiffs again sought to hold Defendants in contempt. With minor modifications, the facts set out by plaintiffs in their contempt motion were stipulated as correct by Defendants in a Motion to Submit Amendment. Negotiations ensued which produced, after months of deliberation, the Revised Stipulation (Dkt.5094), on which Plaintiffs ground their present requests for fines and compensatory relief.
On January 30, 1998 Plaintiffs filed a Motion for Order to Show Cause Why Defendants Should Not be Held in Contempt For Holding Inmates in Admission Cells in Violation of the Court's Orders (Dkt.6759). In that motion Plaintiffs assert that Defendant's violated this Court's orders regarding (1) the maximum amount of time an inmate may be held in a detention cell, holding pen or admission cell, (2) the maximum number of inmates which may be placed in admissions cells, (3) the immediate notification to the Court on newly created admission cell areas, and (4) the filing of staffing patterns prior to opening new facilities. On April 30, 1998, Defendants responded by filing an opposition to Plaintiffs' motion. (Dkt.6785). On May 15, 1998, Plaintiffs amended their motion (Dkt.6812), and Defendants responded in opposition on July 6, 1998. (Dkt.6858).
The Court issued an order to show cause why Defendant's should not be held in contempt. Evidentiary hearings were held on July 13, 15-17, 21-23 and October 13-15, 1998. After comprehensively considering the extensive amount of documentary and testimonial evidence presented during the hearing, the Court finds as follows.
I. Findings of Fact
Stipulation dated September 8, 1986 (filed September 10, 1986; Dkt.910). This stipulation was approved by Order dated January 26, 1987 (Dkt.948).
The Court Monitor's 107th Report Recommending Maximum Capacities for Detention Cells (Dkt.2122) established maximum capacities for detention cells throughout the correctional system. This Court adopted the report in its May 23, 1990 Order which instructed Defendant's to follow the maximum capacities established in the monitor's report. (Dkt.2236). In case of an emergency, the capacity of admission cells could be exceeded but not for more than eight hours. Defendants were directed to notify the Court "as quickly as possible" if they exceeded the cells capacities for "emergency" reasons. Id.
The May 23, 1990 Order reiterated to Defendants that they were not to hold inmates in admission cells for more than 24 hours. In the Court's own words . Id. (emphasis added). Defendants were further charged with the obligation of providing constant supervision of admission cells to assure the inmate's "safety and hygienic needs". Id. Defendants were to notify the Court of the location, size and designation of any cell not addressed by the order if that cell was to be used for admissions purposes.
In 1994, Defendants agreed to be subject to automatic fines in the event that they housed inmates in admission cells in violation of the Court's orders. These unappealable fines and the conditions under which they will be imposed, are set forth in paragraph III.B.3 of the parties Revised Stipulation (Dkt.5094)2. This Court further elaborated on the procedure for imposition of such fines in its Order Finally Approving Stipulations Regarding Security, Staffing, FRP, Classification and Other Matters (Dkt.5429).
On September 1, 1994 the parties entered into a Stipulation Regarding Custodial and Sociopenal Staffing ("Staffing Stipulation") (Dkt.5241). This stipulation specified, at paragraph 44, that "defendants will not open any new facilities, new housing units, or housing units rehabilitated under the Facilities Rehabilitation Program until defendants have filed a staffing pattern for the facility or unit..." The Court approved the stipulation on December 5, 1994 (Dkt.5429) and directed defendants to implement the stipulation's provisions.
Admission cells, holding pens and detention cells must be managed differently from the rest of the correctional facility. Inmates are not expected to remain in intake facilities for prolonged periods of time. Thus, admission cells lack many of the features that make housing units habitable. In general, admission cells lack toilets, beds, bathing or washing facilities, drinking fountains and are usually located in areas where access to programming and recreational facilities is limited or nonexistent.
Admission cells house inmates which are at a particularly susceptible period of their correctional tenure. For starters some of the inmates quartered in these cells come directly from the street. Little is known about these inmates. Correctional officers are ignorant of such things as whether the newly arrived inmates are particularly violent, whether they are in need of any special care or whether they are particularly susceptible to attacks by the rest of the prison population. Not everything is known about the inmate's health before he mixes with other inmates in an admission cell3. Overcrowding and prolonged stays in admission cells increases the vulnerability of the overall situation and the spreading of diseases.
It was with this scenario in mind that this Court ordered Defendants to rectify their unconstitutional treatment of inmates locked up in admission cells4.
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