Ruiz v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 01 March 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. CIV.A. H-78-987.,CIV.A. H-78-987. |
| Citation | 37 F.Supp.2d 855 |
| Parties | David RUIZ, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Gary JOHNSON, Director TDCJ-ID, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas |
Daniel Maeso, Assist. Atty. General, Sharon Felfe, Jeff Millstone, Adirian L. Young, Demetri Anastasiadis, Reed Lockhoof, Richard Naylor, Lawrence Wells, Lee Haney, Bruce Garcia, Ann Kraatz, Louis Carrillo, Karen Matlock, Assist. Attorneys General, Gregory S. Coleman, Solicitor General, jack Ratliff, Special Assist., for Defendants.
JUSTICE, Senior District Judge.
Counsel for the State of Texas, in an opening statement in this matter, declared that "[u]nder the guidance of this court, and out of a sincere desire to improve its prison system, ... Texas has transformed its prison policies and practices over the course of the last 20 years."1
There can be no doubt that since David Ruiz and the other named plaintiffs began this civil action in 1972 with allegations of unconstitutional practices and conditions in the Texas Department of Corrections' (TDC) prisons, the parties have effected remarkable changes within the prison system. In an epic trial in 1978 and 1979, the plaintiffs' evidence offered a rare glimpse behind the walls that so conveniently shielded free world society from the barbarous living conditions of many of the approximately 25,000 individuals then incarcerated in the TDC prison system.2 Faced with the staggering magnitude of the constitutional violations found in Texas prisons in 1980, this court regretfully acknowledged that
it is impossible for a written opinion to convey the pernicious conditions and the pain and degradation which ordinary inmates suffer within TDC prison walls-the gruesome experiences of youthful first offenders forcibly raped; the cruel and justifiable fears of inmates, wondering when they will be called upon to defend the next violent assault; the sheer misery, the discomfort, the wholesale loss of privacy for prisoners housed with one, two, or three others in a forty-five foot cell or suffocatingly packed together in a crowded dormitory; the physical suffering and wretched psychological stress which must be endured by those sick or injured who cannot obtain adequate medical care; the sense of abject helplessness felt by inmates arbitrarily sent to solitary confinement or administrative segregation without proper opportunity to defend themselves or to argue their causes; the bitter frustration of inmates prevented from petitioning the courts and other government authorities for relief from perceived injustices.
Ruiz v. Estelle, 503 F.Supp. 1265, 1390 (S.D.Tex.1980).
Truly, much has changed. The Texas prison system, having grown to incarcerate approximately 140,000 inmates in over 100 penal institutions, has instituted a complex web of policies and regulations designed to alleviate many, if not all, of those problems. Today, plaintiffs and defendants alike look back with horror at the way the system used to be. Plaintiffs and defendants alike may also look back with pride at how much the system has...
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