More v. Farrier
| Decision Date | 24 February 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 92-1468,92-1468 |
| Citation | 984 F.2d 269 |
| Parties | 3 NDLR P 240 Glendale MORE, Jr., Appellee, v. Harold FARRIER; Paul Grossheim; Crispus Nix; John Henry; Paul Hedgepeth; Jim Helling; John Emmitt; Ken Wittry; Michael Anderson; Steve Davis; Glen Jones; Steve Young; Salace Gerdes; Roger Lawson; George Fenn; and Tom Mannsheim, Appellants. Michael E. Burrows; John Coburn, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Layne M. Lindebak, Asst. Atty. Gen., Des Moines, IA, argued, for appellants.
George S. Eichhorn, Des Moines, IA, argued (Mark S. Pennington, on the brief), for appellees.
Before FAGG, BEAM, and HANSEN, Circuit Judges.
Glendale More, Jr., an Iowa State Penitentiary ("ISP") inmate who regularly uses a wheelchair, brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights action on behalf of himself and two other wheelchair-bound ISP inmates 1 (collectively "appellees") to settle their rights and privileges at ISP. The only issue on appeal is whether the named Iowa prison officials violated appellees' rights to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment by refusing to install cable television service in their individual cells. 2 The district court referred this issue to a magistrate judge who decided, based on stipulated facts, that appellees failed to prove a constitutional violation. On a de novo review of the record the district court rejected the magistrate judge's recommendation, found an equal protection violation, and issued injunctive and declaratory relief. We reverse.
The stipulated facts indicate that prior to December 1987, appellees were incarcerated in Cellhouse 217, the only cellhouse in the ISP system that could accommodate wheelchair-bound inmates. While they were housed at Cellhouse 217, appellees, like all other inmates in good standing, were permitted to purchase television sets from approved distributors and were provided with cable television service in their individual cells.
Cellhouse 217 was subsequently closed by court order and all prisoners were relocated. Because of their physical disabilities, on December 17, 1987, ISP moved appellees to an area of the infirmary known as the Special Needs Unit. Unlike all other cells at ISP, the cells in the Special Needs Unit are not equipped with cable television service and the prison has refused to install cable service in the individual Special Needs Unit cells. Cable service is necessary for adequate television reception at ISP.
Pursuant to the consent order, ISP provides appellees access to two cable televisions in the community room between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. daily. Appellees report problems with viewing television in the community room, however, including disagreements over program selection, noise, 3 second-hand smoke from other inmates, and the inability to take college credit classes on educational television if they choose to do so.
Counsel for the prison stated at the settlement conference that the cost of running cable into appellees' cells was not the main reason for denying in-cell cable service. The prison officials proffered two other reasons for denying access to in-cell cable television in the Special Needs Unit. The district court rejected those reasons as not rationally related to the legitimate interests of the institution, and held that the prison officials violated appellees' equal protection rights by failing to provide them with in-cell cable television service.
Because the parties stipulated the facts below, there are no factual issues on appeal. We conduct a de novo review of the district court's application of the law to the facts. Mangels v. United States, 828 F.2d 1324, 1326 (8th Cir.1987). Despite television's importance in modern society, appellees have no fundamental right to in-cell cable television, and wheelchair-bound inmates are not a suspect class. City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 441-43, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 3255-56, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985). Accordingly, we review appellees' equal protection claim under a rational basis standard. 4 Under this standard appellees prevail if (1) they are similarly situated with persons who are treated differently by ISP, and (2) ISP has no rational basis for the dissimilar treatment. Moreland v. United States, 968 F.2d 655, 660 (8th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 675, 121 L.Ed.2d 598 (1992).
The prison officials argue that appellees are not similarly situated with other inmates in good standing because wheelchair-bound inmates present unique penological challenges. To support their argument, the prison officials cite difficulties with providing appellees access to prison programs and to certain areas of the prison that are open to more ambulatory prisoners. The problems that ISP may confront in providing appellees access to the chapel, gym, job sites, or other facilities, however, are irrelevant to the determination whether appellees are similarly situated to other inmates with respect to in-cell cable television service. See Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 76, 92 S.Ct. 251, 254, 30 L.Ed.2d 225 (1971) (). Appellees are as capable of watching television in their cells as any other prisoner at ISP. The prison officials would not have to provide any special assistance for appellees to watch television in their own cells rather than in the community room. Accordingly, we find that appellees are similarly situated with other prisoners who have in-cell cable service for the purposes of this case.
Under the rational basis test, even where similarly situated persons are treated differently by the state, state action is presumed constitutional and "will not be set aside if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it." McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 426, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 1105, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961). We will uphold a challenged state action so long as it bears a rational relationship to a state objective not prohibited by the Constitution. See Stiles v. Blunt, 912 F.2d 260, 263 (8th Cir.1990), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 1307, 113 L.Ed.2d 241 (1991). Not all government-created...
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