Nelson v. Heyne

• Decision Date: 31 January 1974
• Docket Number: 73-1446.,No. 72-1970,72-1970
• Citation: 491 F.2d 352
• Parties: Eric NELSON, by his next friend, Corine Nelson, and Daniel R. Roberts, by his next friend, Robert Brown, on behalf of themselves and a class of persons similarly situated but too numerous and too transitory to mention, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Robert P. HEYNE, Individually and in his capacity as Commissioner of Corrections, Indiana Department of Corrections, et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

491 F.2d 352 (1974)

Eric NELSON, by his next friend, Corine Nelson, and Daniel R. Roberts, by his next friend, Robert Brown, on behalf of themselves and a class of persons similarly situated but too numerous and too transitory to mention, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Robert P. HEYNE, Individually and in his capacity as Commissioner of Corrections, Indiana Department of Corrections, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 72-1970, 73-1446.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued September 20, 1973.

Decided January 31, 1974.

Theodore Sendak, Atty. Gen., Darrel K. Diamond, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, Ind., for defendants-appellants.

Thomas A. Digrazia and John P. Forhan, South Bend, Ind., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Before KILEY, Senior Circuit Judge, and FAIRCHILD and SPRECHER, Circuit Judges.

KILEY, Senior Circuit Judge.

The district court in this class civil rights action¹ enjoined defendants from implementing alleged unconstitutional practices and policies in conducting the Indiana Boys School under their administration; and declared the practices and policies unconstitutional. In Appeal No. 72-1970 defendants challenge the validity of the judgment granting the injunction, and in Appeal No. 73-1446 challenge the declaratory judgment. We affirm.

The School, located in Plainfield, Indiana, is a medium security state correctional institution for boys twelve to eighteen years of age, an estimated one-third of whom are non-criminal offenders. The boys reside in about sixteen cottages. The School also has academic and vocational school buildings, a gymnasium and an administrative building. The average length of a juvenile's stay at the School is about six and one-half months. Although the School's maximum capacity is less than 300 juveniles, its population is generally maintained at 400. The counselling staff of twenty individuals includes three psychologists with undergraduate academic degrees, and one part-time psychiatrist who spends four hours a week at the institution. The medical staff includes one part-time physician, one registered nurse, and one licensed practical nurse.

The complaint alleged that defendants' practices and policies violated the 8th and 14th Amendments rights of the juveniles under their care. Plaintiffs moved for a temporary restraining order to protect them from, inter alia, defendants' corporal punishment and use of control-tranquilizing drugs. After hearing, the district court denied the motion and set the date for hearing on the merits. Defendants' answer generally denied plaintiffs' allegations. Trial briefs were filed upon the issue whether defendants deprived plaintiffs of their alleged right to adequate rehabilitative treatment.

The court found that it had jurisdiction and that the corporal punishment and the method of administering tranquilizing drugs by defendants constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of plaintiffs' 8th and 14th Amendment rights. The judgment restraining the challenged practices followed. The court thereafter, in a separate judgment, declared plaintiffs had the right to adequate rehabilitative treatment.²

I — CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT

A.

It is not disputed that the juveniles who were returned from escapes or who were accused of assaults on other students or staff members were beaten routinely by guards under defendants' supervision. There is no proof of formal procedures that governed the beatings which were administered after decision by two or more staff members. Two staff members were required to observe the beatings.

In beating the juveniles, a "fraternity paddle" between 1/2" and 2" thick, 12" long, with a narrow handle, was used. There is testimony that juveniles weighing about 160 pounds were struck five blows on the clothed buttocks, often by a staff member weighing 285 pounds. The beatings caused painful injuries.³ The district court found that this disciplinary practice violated the plaintiffs' 8th and 14th Amendment rights, and ordered it stopped immediately.

We recognize that the School is a correctional, as well as an academic, institution.⁴ No case precisely in point has been cited or found which decided whether supervised beatings in a juvenile reformatory violated the "cruel and unusual" clause of the 8th Amendment.⁵ However, the test of "cruel and unusual" punishment has been outlined. In his concurring opinion in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 279, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2747, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1971), Justice Brennan stated that:

The final principle inherent in the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause is that a severe punishment must not be excessive. A punishment is excessive under this principle if it is unnecessary: The infliction of a severe punishment by the State cannot comport with human dignity when it is nothing more than the pointless infliction of suffering. If there is a significantly less severe punishment adequate to achieve the purposes for which the punishment is inflicted, the punishment inflicted is unnecessary and therefore excessive. (Citations omitted.)

Expert evidence adduced at the trial unanimously condemned the beatings. The uncontradicted authoritative evidence indicates that the practice does not serve as useful punishment or as treatment, and it actually breeds counter-hostility resulting in greater aggression by a child. For these reasons we find the beatings presently administered are unnecessary and therefore excessive. We think, under the test of Furman, that the district court did not err in deciding that the disciplinary beatings shown by this record constituted cruel and unusual punishment.⁶

The 8th Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment is binding on the states through the 14th Amendment. Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L. Ed.2d 758 (1962); Francis v. Resweber, 329 U.S. 459, 67 S.Ct. 374, 91 L.Ed. 422 (1947). The meaning of cruel and unusual punishment in law has varied through the course of history, and as the Court observed in Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101, 78 S.Ct. 590, 598, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1958):

The 8th Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.

The district court's decision meets tests that have been applied in decisions to determine whether the standards of decency in a maturing society have been met, i. e.: whether the punishment is disproportionate to the offense, Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 30 S.Ct. 544, 54 L.Ed. 793 (1910); and whether the severity or harshness of the punishment offends "broad and idealistic concepts of dignity, civilized standards, humanity, and decency." Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571 (8th Cir. 1968). The record before us discloses that the beatings employed by defendants are disproportionate to the offenses for which they are used, and do not measure up to contemporary standards of decency in our contemporary society.

There is nothing in the record to show that a less severe punishment would not have accomplished the disciplinary aim. And it is likely that the beatings have aroused animosity toward the School and substantially frustrated its rehabilitative purpose. We find in the record before us, to support our holding, general considerations similar to those the court in Jackson found relevant: (1) corporal punishment is easily subject to abuse in the hands of the sadistic and unscrupulous, and control of the punishment is inadequate; (2) formalized School procedures governing the infliction of the corporal punishment are at a minimum; (3) the infliction of such severe punishment frustrates correctional and rehabilitative goals; and (4) the current sociological trend is toward the elimination of all corporal punishment in all correctional institutions.

The Indiana Supreme Court decision in Indiana State Personnel Board v. Jackson, 244 Ind. 321, 192 N.E.2d 740 (1963), cited by the defendants, is of no aid to set aside the district court decision. There the court held, inter alia, under the parens patriae doctrine, that a public school teacher, in proper cases and proportions, may administer corporal punishment.⁷ We agree with that decision.

B.

Witnesses for both the School and the juveniles testified at trial that tranquilizing drugs, specifically Sparine and Thorazine, were occasionally administered to the juveniles, not as part of an ongoing psychotherapeutic program, but for the purpose of controlling excited behavior.⁸ The registered nurse and licensed practical nurse prescribed intra-muscular dosages of the drugs upon recommendation of the custodial staff under standing orders by the physician.⁹ Neither before nor after injections were the juveniles examined by medically competent staff members to determine their tolerances.

The district court also found this practice to be cruel and unusual punishment. Accordingly the court ordered the practice stopped immediately, and further ordered that no drug could be administered intramuscularly unless specifically authorized or directed by a physician in each case, and unless oral medication was first tried, except where the staff was directed otherwise by a physician in each case.

We agree with defendants that a judge lacking expertise in medicine should be cautious when considering what are "minimal medical standards" in particular situations. However, practices and policies in the field of medicine, among other professional fields, are within judicial competence when measured against requirements of the Constitution. We find no error in the competent district court's determination here that the use of tranquilizing drugs as practiced by defendants was cruel and unusual punishment.

We are not persuaded by defendants' argument that the use of tranquilizing drugs is not "punishment." Experts testified that the tranquilizing drugs administered to the juveniles can cause: the collapse of the cardiovascular system, the closing of a patient's throat with...