Plyler v. Leeke, 86-7654
| Decision Date | 12 November 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-7654,86-7654 |
| Citation | 804 F.2d 1251 |
| Parties | Unpublished Disposition NOTICE: Fourth Circuit I.O.P. 36.6 states that citation of unpublished dispositions is disfavored except for establishing res judicata, estoppel, or the law of the case and requires service of copies of cited unpublished dispositions of the Fourth Circuit. Harry PLYLER, et al., (formerly Gary Wayne Nelson, et al.), Appellees, v. William D. LEEKE, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of Corrections, and Members of the South Carolina Board of Corrections, Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Before PHILLIPS and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and HAYNSWORTH, Senior Circuit Judge.
Kenneth Paul Woodington, Senior Assistant Attorney General (T. Travis Medlock, Attorney General; Larry C. Batson, Legal Advisor, South Carolina Department of Corrections, on brief), for appellants.
W. Gaston Fairey (Fairey & Parise, P.A.; Steven Ney; National Prison Project, American Civil Liberties Union; Julie I. Edelson; Southern Prisoner's Defense Committee, on brief), for appellees.
W. Gaston Fairey (Fairey & Parise, P.A.; Steven Ney; National Prison Project, American Civil Liberties Union; julie I. Edelson; Southern Prisoner's Defense Committee, on brief), for appellees.
This appeal arises from a partial denial of cross motions to enforce and to amend a consent order containing detailed standards for the housing and care of prisoners in South Carolina's correctional system. In large part, the appeal is moot and is not subject to review under the principle that it is subject to repetition while evading review. To the extent that the case is not moot, the order below is affirmed. Any new or continuing matters are left to the district judge for handling under the flexible discretion vested in him.
A class action was filed on behalf of prisoners in South Carolina's correctional system complaining of the conditions of their confinement. After considerable maneuvering, the parties entered into a comprehensive settlement agreement which was embodied in a consent decree. 1 That decree addressed not only problems of overcrowding but other matters affecting the quality of the life of prison inmates.
For the purpose of remedying overcrowded conditions, South Carolina embarked upon an ambitious program of prison construction and renovation. The settlement agreement contemplated that restrictions upon double celling and triple celling prisoners would be phased in as new facilities became available for use. The judge approved the decree by written order in March 1986. 2
At about the time the written order was issued, the prison system began to experience extraordinary growth in its prison population. Growth had been anticipated at an average of some 30 to 50 prisoners per month. In the past, experience had conformed with official prediction, but in the spring of 1986 the system began to experience increases at more than twice the predicted rate. The consequence was that by late July 1986 there were approximately 530 non-conforming beds scattered through eleven separate facilities.
The district court held a hearing on July 21 and 22.
At the hearing, the state defendants sought a modification of the decree to permit the overcrowded conditions to continue until the prisoner early release program of the Omnibus Crime Act, Act 462 of 1986, becomes effective and operative in early 1987. That Act authorizes the early release of non-violent prisoners by the state parole board at the rate of 200 each month. The statute envisions the employment and training of additional parole officers to provide parole supervision for those additional parolees.
The district court did not grant the defendants' requested relief, but it declined to order immediate strict compliance with the terms of the consent decree. It ordered the defendants to reduce the number of non-conforming beds by 200 within fifteen days, and to eliminate the remaining non-conforming beds by September 20.
The defendants complied with the order. Compliance required the early release of 149 prisoners on August 5 and 6, 1986, the average advance in their release dates being 26 days. There were no additional early releases of prisoners on September 20 because the opening of additional facilities had permitted the state to eliminate all non-conforming beds.
The defendants had informed the judge that, though the state brought itself into compliance with the decree in September, it anticipated that heavy increases in the prison population might again create problems later in the fall of 1986. The district court did not foreclose further relief if the overcrowdedness problem recurred in the late fall of 1986. It informed the parties that a status conference would be held, upon request, at which further consideration would be given to the potential overcrowding problems, when they were better defined after September 20.
Insofar as the July order required the elimination of 530 non-conforming beds by September 20, the appeal is clearly moot. By the early release of 149 prisoners in early August and by the transfer of prisoners to new facilities, the defendants brought themselves into complete compliance with the order by September 20.
The July order did not purport to deal with the defendants' anticipation that an overcrowding problem would again arise later this year. The district court said it would hold a status conference and consider that question after September 20. As to that, there is no final order from which to appeal.
In July the district court declined the defendants' request that they be required to do nothing about the 530 non-conforming beds until South Carolina's Omnibus Crime Act was fully in place in January 1987. It did give them up to sixty days within which to achieve that elimination, and, as it turned out, compliance required the early release of no more than 149 non-violent prisoners.
From those circumstances, however, we can find no implicit rejection of the same request by the defendants in the context of an overcrowded condition arising late in 1986. As the effectiveness of the Omnibus Crime Act draws nearer, the stronger will grow the defendants' argument that a federal court should defer to the state's own self-correcting devices. There is some force in the defendants' argument that court ordered early releases before the planned reenforcement of the state's parole officers is undesirable. No one doubts that the defendants have striven manfully to bring and keep themselves within the requirements of the consent decree, and the district judge has demonstrated his...
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Plyler v. Evatt, 90-6789
...this order was dismissed as moot when the state achieved compliance with the requirements while the appeal was pending. Plyler v. Leeke, 804 F.2d 1251 (4th Cir.1986). Again in May of 1987, when the inmate class sought an enforcement order, the state countered with a motion for permanent mod......