Paoli v. Lally

• Decision Date: 23 May 1986
• Docket Number: K-80-2921 and K-83-3305.,Civ. No. K-74-476
• Citation: 636 F. Supp. 1252
• Parties: Lawrence PAOLI, Jr. v. Robert LALLY, etc., et al. Lawrence PAOLI, Jr. v. Edwin R. GOODLANDER, etc., et al. Lawrence PAOLI, Jr. v. William J. KUNKEL, etc.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

636 F. Supp. 1252

Lawrence PAOLI, Jr. v. Robert LALLY, etc., et al.

Lawrence PAOLI, Jr. v. Edwin R. GOODLANDER, etc., et al.

Lawrence PAOLI, Jr. v. William J. KUNKEL, etc.

Civ. Nos. K-74-476, K-80-2921 and K-83-3305.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

May 23, 1986.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

John H. West, III, Pamela J. White, and Ober, Kaler, Grimes & Shriver, Baltimore, for plaintiff.

Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., and Deborah K. Chasanow, and Stephanie J. Lane, Asst. Attys. Gen., for defendants.

FRANK A. KAUFMAN, District Judge.

In April 1966, Lawrence Paoli, Jr. was sentenced in the Criminal Court for Baltimore City, Maryland to eighteen (18) concurrent life sentences after pleas of guilty and convictions after trial, upon ten (10) charges of rape, and eight (8) charges of intent to rape.¹ From that time until now, Paoli has been incarcerated within the correctional system of the State of Maryland. At all times during those years, Paoli has been the only inmate in that system serving eighteen (18) concurrent life sentences.² Paoli suffers from a physiological defect which, the parties agree, gave rise to his criminal behavior. He has a testosterone level approximately twice that of a normal male. In 1974, Paoli, then confined in the Maryland Penitentiary, filed a lawsuit in this Court, Civil No. K-74-476, seeking to obtain experimental treatment by use of the drug, Depo-Provera, which lowers testosterone levels and thus decreases sexual behavior. In May 1975, this Court, with the agreement of Paoli and the appropriate officials of the State of Maryland and of Johns Hopkins Hospital,³ ordered that Paoli receive Depo-Provera and psychotherapy treatments to be administered to him at the Maryland Penitentiary by medical personnel of the Johns Hopkins Hospital acting within a program directed by Drs. John Money and Fred Berlin. Depo-Provera is administered by injection. A single injection remains effective for seven (7) days. Since 1975 and to and including the date of this opinion, weekly injections of the drug have been so administered to Paoli. The results have been dramatic. Paoli now looks and behaves like a far different person than he seemed to be when he appeared in this Court in 1975.

Because some patients fail to comply with treatment schedules, a report by the Office of Psychohormonal Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine states that "it is imperative that there be strict, failsafe supervision of the patient, should he eventually leave the prison system, regarding compliance in obtaining treatment, until such time as it is legally terminable."⁴ No expert has been able to state to Commissioner Goodlander or, seemingly, to anyone else that if plaintiff should fail to obtain treatments he would not revert to antisocial sexual behavior.⁵

In August 1977 plaintiff was recommended by a classification team and the Maryland Penitentiary warden for transfer from that maximum security institution to a minimum security facility. In November 1977, the Maryland Parole Commission, though it denied Paoli's application for parole, also recommended that he be placed in a minimum security facility, and set a parole rehearing for November 1980. At first, Paoli's recommended transfer to a minimum security facility was denied by Maryland's Commissioner of Corrections. However, subsequently, that official approved Paoli's transfer to medium security at the Maryland Correctional Training Center (MCTC), and that transfer was effected on February 24, 1978. In April 1979 plaintiff was recommended by a classification team at MCTC for transfer to minimum security. However, that recommendation was denied by the MCTC warden. In August 1979 another classification team again recommended that plaintiff be transferred to a minimum security facility, namely, the Emergency Housing Unit (EHU). The MCTC warden approved that recommendation and also approved an additional recommendation that Paoli be considered for admission to the Maryland Pre-Release System. On August 22, 1979, plaintiff was moved from MCTC to EHU. The following day, Maryland's then Commissioner of Corrections, Edwin R. Goodlander, ordered Paoli's immediate return to MCTC pending a final classification review and decision in plaintiff's case by the Commissioner's office.

Following plaintiff's return to MCTC Commissioner Goodlander continued (or began) a review of plaintiff's file. Following that review, and another recommendation by a classification team at MCTC that plaintiff be assigned to a minimum security facility, Commissioner Goodlander denied the recommended transfer in July 1980. Since 1978 plaintiff's prison file has contained a notice or "flag" indicating that the Commissioner was to be notified before plaintiff is transferred to a less than medium security facility.⁶

In November 1980, the Parole Commission, after affording plaintiff a hearing, denied parole to plaintiff and did not set a rehearing date. In 1982 or 1983 the Commissioner of Corrections (then Jon Galley) recommended that the plaintiff be given a rehearing date. In January 1983, the Chairman of Maryland's Parole Commission, William Kunkel, and the other members of that commission, decided not to set a rehearing date. Nevertheless, subsequent to that decision, the Parole Commission did in fact set a hearing for February 1984. That hearing was held and parole again denied to Paoli. Another rehearing was at that time scheduled for 1992.

Plaintiff was transferred to the Patuxent Institution⁷ for evaluation in November 1981. In March 1982 it was determined that the Patuxent program was not suitable for plaintiff; thereupon, he was transferred back to the Maryland Penitentiary, where plaintiff is presently incarcerated.⁸ Other than the 1992 parole rehearing there are no further prison administrative or parole proceedings contemplated at the present time in connection with Paoli.

In 1980 Paoli filed Civil No. K-80-2921 against then Commissioner Goodlander under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of his due process, equal protection and Eighth Amendment rights, and seeking compensatory and punitive damages, an injunction requiring his placement in a minimum security facility, and declaratory relief. That suit originally named Goodlander as a defendant in both his individual capacity and in his official capacity as Commissioner of the Maryland Division of Correction; by stipulation among the parties, that suit continues against former Commissioner Goodlander as defendant in his individual capacity and present Commissioner Arnold J. Hopkins as defendant in his official capacity.

In 1983 plaintiff filed a second lawsuit, Civil No. K-83-3305, under section 1983, against William Kunkel, Chairman of the Maryland Parole Commission, alleging that the Parole Commission violated plaintiff's due process, equal protection, and Eighth Amendment rights by failing appropriately to schedule a parole rehearing following a denial of parole. In Civil No. K-83-3305, plaintiff seeks compensatory damages, an injunction requiring a parole rehearing, and declaratory relief.

On October 23, 1984, this Court consolidated the said two cases, i.e., Civil Nos. K-80-2921 and K-83-3305, along with plaintiff's earlier case, Civil No. K-74-476. Presently pending are cross-motions for summary judgment filed by both sides in both Civil Nos. K-80-2921 and K-83-3305. Summary judgment "should be granted only where it is perfectly clear that no issue of fact is involved and inquiry into the facts is not desirable to clarify the application of the law." Stevens v. Howard D. Johnson Co., 181 F.2d 390, 394 (4th Cir.1950). The issues posed in the within cases, however, are legal and not factual. Indeed, as noted, supra note 1, the parties have entered into substantial stipulations of material facts. Accordingly, for the reasons set forth in this opinion, this Court will enter an order granting summary judgment as to all defendants and denying the summary judgment motions of plaintiff in these consolidated cases.

I. CLASSIFICATION

In Civil No. K-80-2921 Paoli claims that Commissioner Goodlander's action in transferring Paoli back to the MCTC in August 1979 and Goodlander's July 1980 denial of minimum security classification for Paoli violated Paoli's due process, equal protection, and Eighth Amendment rights.

A. Due Process

A "convicted felon does not forfeit all constitutional protections by reason of his conviction and confinement in prison." Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 225, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 2538, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976). The Supreme Court has considered the constitutional rights of prisoners in a number of decisions and has "consistently refused to recognize more than the most basic liberty interests in prisoners," Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 467, 103 S.Ct. 864, 869, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), and has also established that, in most instances, the Due Process Clause does not, in and of itself, create any liberty interest against transfers of a prisoner from one facility to another.

In Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480, 100 S.Ct. 1254, 63 L.Ed.2d 552 (1980), the prisoner was transferred from a prison to a mental institution. Justice White wrote that "changes in the conditions of confinement having a substantial adverse impact on the prisoner are not alone sufficient to invoke the protections of the Due Process Clause `as long as the conditions or degree of confinement to which the prisoner is subjected is within the sentence imposed upon him.' Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, at 242, 96 S.Ct. 2543, at 2547 49 L.Ed.2d 466." Id. at 493, 100 S.Ct. at 1264. Concluding "that involuntary commitment to a mental hospital is not within the range of confinement to which a prison sentence subjects an individual," id., Justice White held that the transfer "implicated a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause." Id. at 494, 100 S.Ct. at 1264.

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