Smith v. Turner
| Decision Date | 05 June 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 9423,9423 |
| Citation | 12 Utah 2d 66,362 P.2d 581 |
| Parties | d 66 Charles V. SMITH, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. John W. TURNER, Warden of Utah State Prison, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Walter L. Budge, Atty. Gen., Ronald N. Boyce, Asst. Atty. Gen., Vernon B. Romney, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.
Earl M. Wunderli, Lester R. Gardiner, Jr., Salt Lake City, for respondent.
Appeal from an order granting a petition for writ of habeas corpus where cruel and unusual punishment was urged, unless the petitioner be taken to a county hospital, given medical tests, recommendations for treatment for petitioner's psoriasis, and to provide a diet therefor and medication to be prescribed by physicians who might examine him. Reversed with instructions to vacate said order.
Two witnesses appeared, the petitioner and the prison physician. The latter was qualified as a general practitioner (by stipulation). Petitioner displayed sores and bumps on his arms and legs, constituting an ailment known as psoriasis. He testified that the prison doctor had been treating him with olive oil, which did no good, but harm; that he had been treated with oil before he entered the prison some three years prior thereto; that the prison doctor prescribed daily baths, which took about 30 minutes each day before he was confined in a security area, after which he was allowed a 20-minute period; that the prison doctor also had treated him with lanolin; that although petitioner had requested that he be taken to the county hospital, such request was not granted; that he is given the same diet as other prisoners; that he had been told by unnamed other doctors that a special diet would help; that he had spent two or three months in the prison hospital; that he had been placed in a security cell block for an abuse of the use of medicines given him; that he had previously been treated by about three other doctors who had him eat fresh vegetables and drink fruit juices and use a patent medicine known as 'Siroil,' and that he had obtained relief thereby. He offered no medical or other expert testimony to support what he said, part of which was hearsay. He admitted his recent isolation resulted from violation of prison regulations.
The prison doctor testified that it would be impossible to determine the number of times petitioner was examined during the past year because constantly he had been under care since he was admitted to the prison in 1957; that there was no known cause of psoriasis, and no known cure, but that there was speculation that sanitary, dietary or an overlay of nervous instability may be causes; that petitioner repeatedly had been in difficulty with prison authorities, at which times his skin condition would worsen; that there is no reason why the prison personnel and hospital facilities could not properly treat the petitioner for his affliction; that medication was never denied petitioner for his skin ailment, except sleeping pills and tranquilizers; that there is no reason he knows why treatment would not be as adequate at the prison as would be treatment by other physicians in other hospitals; that all diets are not available to prisoners in the hospital; that he did not think diet had any bearing on psoriasis, but that if diet would aid he would be glad to help petitioner; that besides an opportunity to bathe during the 20-minute daily period granted, there have been also a wash basin and adequate sanitary conditions in petitioner's cell.
We do not consider the facts of this case to constitute that rare case we spoke of in Chapman v. Graham 1 that conceivably might sanction the use of the writ. We reaffirm the...
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...49 N.Y.2d 69, 399 N.E.2d 1188 (1979); Commonwealth v. Hendrick, 444 Pa. 83, 280 A.2d 110, 51 A.L.R.3d 98 (1971); Smith v. Turner, 12 Utah 2d 66, 362 P.2d 581 (1961); see also Annot., 51 A.L.R.3d 111 (1973).2 We have held in Smith v. Slack, 125 W.Va. 812, 26 S.E.2d 387 (1943), that a failure......
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