Sanders v. Coman

• Decision Date: 11 October 1994
• Docket Number: No. 5:94-CT-510-BR.,5:94-CT-510-BR.
• Citation: 864 F. Supp. 496
• Parties: Steven SANDERS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. James J. COMAN, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of North Carolina

864 F. Supp. 496

Steven SANDERS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. James J. COMAN, et al., Defendants.

No. 5:94-CT-510-BR.

United States District Court, E.D. North Carolina, Western Division.

October 11, 1994.

Susan Hubbard Pollitt, Paul MacAllister Green, NC Prisoner Legal Services, Inc., Raleigh, NC, for plaintiff.

Jane R. Garvey, State of N.C., Dept. of Justice, Raleigh, NC, for defendants.

ORDER

BRITT, District Judge.

In this action plaintiffs, state prison inmates, seek protection from a North Carolina statute requiring that they give blood samples for use in a DNA databank. The issues have been fully briefed and a hearing held.

I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE

On 15 July 1994, plaintiffs filed their complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. On 22 September 1994, plaintiffs moved the court to certify a class composed of "all persons who are now or will be incarcerated in the North Carolina Department of Correction (DOC) for the crimes enumerated in N.C.Gen.Stat. § 15A-266.4(h) committed before 1 July 1994." Defendants orally agreed to the certification at the 23 September 1994 hearing. Plaintiffs' motion is ALLOWED and the class is hereby certified.

Plaintiffs ground their claim on alleged violations of the United States and North Carolina Constitutions. On 20 July 1994, a hearing was held on plaintiffs' application for a temporary restraining order, and the court, allowing the motion in part, temporarily restrained defendants from using force to extract DNA blood samples. This ruling was memorialized in a written order filed 21 July 1994.

By order filed 28 July 1994, the hearing on plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction was combined with a hearing on the merits. The court ordered each side to present witness testimony in affidavit form with the opposing side having the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses at the hearing. The combined hearing was held before the undersigned on 23 September 1994. By agreement of the parties, no cross-examination was conducted and all exhibits were submitted jointly.

II. FACTS

In 1993 the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation authorizing the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) to establish a databank containing DNA samples of those convicted of certain specified crimes. N.C.Gen.Stat. § 15A-266, et seq. (1993). The statute specifically states two purposes for this legislation: (1) to assist law enforcement agencies in the "identification, detection, or exclusion of individuals who are subjects of the investigation of violent crimes against the person" and (2) "to identify missing persons and victims of mass disasters." Id. at § 15A-266.1. The statute provides that only law enforcement agencies may access the database and they may do so only "in furtherance of an official investigation of a criminal offense" or on order of a superior court. Id. at § 266.8(a).

The DOC did not request or sponsor this legislation. The SBI and the North Carolina Department of Justice were the primary advocates for passage of the statute. The DOC has no special access to the database and was only included in meetings regarding the legislation after it had been passed. (Phillips Depo. p. 75, 13). The DOC must be involved in the implementation of the statute because it is DOC employees who actually take the blood samples from inmates. Since the effective date of the statute, approximately 8,000 DNA samples have been taken.

Plaintiffs contend that defendants are using force to obtain blood samples from inmates who are not giving them voluntarily and that this use of force violates plaintiffs' rights under the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Specifically, plaintiffs allege that there have been at least 13 instances where physical force was used to obtain a blood sample from a noncomplying inmate. The uses of force have included instances of several officers surrounding an inmate while one held his arm still, the spraying of mace, and bending inmates' wrists in a painful manner to induce compliance.

Plaintiffs claim that the sampling procedure violates the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution because it is an unreasonable search and seizure. Specifically, plaintiffs characterize it as a preemptory seizing of blood from a prisoner who otherwise would not submit to the drawing of blood. They claim the Eighth Amendment is violated by the use of force because the force applied is actually corporal punishment and, thus, prohibited by the amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Plaintiffs maintain that the drawing of blood is not related to a legitimate penological interest. The alleged Fourteenth Amendment violation is grounded in the inmates' due process rights to the protection of their liberty interests in bodily integrity.

Plaintiffs also contend that the statute's requirement that all inmates convicted of the specified crimes be required to give a blood sample, even where force is not used, violates the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. They so contend because the statue requires a sample from all covered inmates without regard to probable cause or individualized suspicion. Plaintiffs concede that the case of Jones v. Murray, 962 F.2d 302 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 113 S.Ct. 472, 121 L.Ed.2d 378 (1992), addressed this issue and held that such a statute does not violate the Fourth Amendment. Plaintiffs only make this argument in order to preserve the issue in the event of an appeal.

Plaintiffs' final allegations charge that the requirement that they submit to a DNA blood sample violates Articles I and XI of the North Carolina Constitution. Article I prohibits the use of general warrants and Article XI establishes limits on punishments that will be permitted. Plaintiffs suggest that, even if the alleged federal constitutional violations are resolved against them, the court has jurisdiction over these state law issues which derive from a common set of facts.

Plaintiffs request that the court permanently enjoin defendants from using force to collect DNA blood samples, grant full declaratory and injunctive relief against all mandatory DNA sampling, and declare that North Carolina General Statute § 15A-266.4 may not be applied to deny mandatory parole or eligibility for parole.

Defendants contend that the use of reasonable physical force to effectuate the taking of a DNA sample is lawful. They admit that force was used in the cases of 13 inmates; however, defendants define "force" as "any physical touching of an inmate." They insist that the term is not reserved for active or violent physical confrontations, and DOC regulations require that force only be used when necessary under the circumstances. Of the 13 uses of force to which defendants admit, the majority involved either getting an inmate to the testing area or steadying an inmate's arm so the blood could be taken. Defendants maintain that there was physical confrontation in only two cases and that in both cases, the actions of the DOC employees were in direct response to aggression by the inmates. Defendants assert that the records and policies of the DOC make it clear that the few uses of force were moderate and reasonable under the circumstances. Further, they maintain that all such uses of force were initiated entirely as a result of an inmate's refusal to comply with a direct order or in response to an inmate's active aggression toward DOC staff, or both.

Defendants characterize plaintiffs' claims as being brought only under the Fourth and Eighth Amendments. They claim that plaintiffs' due process claim is based entirely on an ex post facto theory which the Supreme Court rejected in Albright v. Oliver, ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 807, 127 L.Ed.2d 114 (1994). In response to plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment argument, defendants contend that the Fourth Circuit's ruling in Jones v. Murray, 962 F.2d 302 (1992), makes it clear that inmates have no protected Fourth Amendment interest regarding the drawing of blood for DNA sampling. Defendants also note that the Fourth Circuit has taken this ruling a step further to hold that an inmate's refusal to comply with DNA sampling may be treated as a refusal to comply with a direct order and may be enforced through the use of administrative penalties. Ewell v. Murray, 11 F.3d 482 (4th Cir.1993).

In addressing plaintiff's Eighth Amendment arguments, defendants assert that in order to violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, the force challenged must have been used for the purpose of causing harm. Hudson v. McMillian, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 995, 117 L.Ed.2d 156 (1992). Defendants contend that there is no Eighth Amendment violation unless the complained of conduct is punishment or involves "more than ordinary lack of due care for the prisoner's interest or safety." Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 319, 106 S.Ct. 1078, 1084, 89 L.Ed.2d 251 (1986). The Fourth Circuit has held that DNA sampling is a valid administrative requirement and is not punishment. Ewell at 487. Defendants contend that because of that ruling, enforcement of the sampling by normal DOC procedures, even if these procedures allow the use of force, is also valid.

Defendants further maintain that the case of Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987), is not the appropriate standard for analysis of the issues at bar. Defendants assert that Turner applies only "when a prison regulation impinges on inmates' constitutional rights", id. at 89, 107 S.Ct. at 2261, and that the Fourth Circuit has held that DNA sampling does not do so. Jones, 962 F.2d 302. In the alternative, defendants argue that the DNA procedure is proper under the Turner framework, as it serves a valid penological interest. Primarily, they assert that such an interest is stated in the statue itself and, in order to give full effect to this requirement, penological interest must be given a broad meaning. Defendants...