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Court Affirms One Order in Disabled-Inmates Abuse Case
Ninth Circuit Upholds Second Order, Except As to Two Aspects; Case Goes Back to 1994
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday affirmed one order and for the most part affirmed another aimed at stemming widespread abuse of disabled inmates at California penal institutions, with such measures as the installation of surveillance cameras and use of body cams to record instances of staff misconduct gaining approval of a three-judge panel.
“[T]he violations that the district court sought to remedy stemmed from defective systems of accountability and a problematic culture whereby staff targeted disabled inmates for abuse,” Circuit Judge Michelle T. Friedland wrote.
The case goes back to 1994. An action was brought by John Armstrong and others in Armstrong v. Brown alleging widespread violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and the Rehabilitation Act (“RA”) at state prison facilities.
A class (known as the “Armstrong class”) was certified on Jan. 13, 1995 comprised of “all present and future California state prisoners...with mobility, sight, hearing, learning and kidney disabilities that substantially limit one or more of their major life activities.” The court prescribed remedies were prescribed.
Ongoing Violations
Friedland said:
“Nearly thirty years ago, a class of California prisoners challenged in federal court the State’s treatment of disabled inmates. The district court concluded that California prisons were failing to provide legally required accommodations, and our court affirmed. Since then, the State has struggled to remedy the recognized violations, and the class has repeatedly returned to court, prompting the district court to order iterative injunctions that our court has largely affirmed in this appeal. California officials challenge two orders in which the district court again imposed requirements on the State to correct ongoing violations of disabled inmates’ rights. We affirm almost the entirety of the district court’s orders.”
A memo by auditors in 2018 tells of “staff members forcefully removing some inmates from wheelchairs” and “assaulting inmates [who] were already secured with restraint equipment.”
District Court’s Findings
Friedland recited:
“In its order, the district court recounted numerous incidents, which it described as ‘illustrative examples’ of Plaintiffs’ evidence that Armstrong class members were being denied reasonable accommodations or discriminated against because of then* disabilities. In one such illustrative example, a mobility-impaired class member requested not to be handcuffed behind his back because he used a cane and walker. Instead of granting that accommodation, an…officer slammed the class member to the ground, causing him to hit his head on the concrete floor and lose consciousness for several seconds. When the class member awoke, the officer put his knee on the class member’s throat and then kneed him in the face.”
She went on to recount:
“In another incident, an officer refused to stop shining a flashlight into the eyes of a vision-impaired class member who said that the light was painful and exacerbated his disability. When the class member asked to speak with a sergeant, another officer punched the class member in the jaw. Multiple incidents recounted by the district court described officers denying class members’ requests for wheelchair pushers and for showers after incontinence incidents; others described officers closing doors on class members with mobility disabilities.”
Two Orders
One order to prison authorities and the governor relates to the 780-acre Richard J. Donovan (“RJD”) Correctional Facility in San Diego County which houses nearly 1,000 class members. The second order pertains to five other facilities: the California State Prison, Los Angeles County, California State Prison, Corcoran, Substance Abuse Treatment Facility, California Institute for Women, and Kern Valley State Prison.
Yesterday’s opinion ratifies the “Five Prisons Remedial Plan” ordered by District Court Judge Claudia Wilken of the Northern District of California except as to two aspects. Wilkins on March 11, 2021, declared that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (“CDCR”) “shall develop a plan to modify its policies to more effectively monitor and control the use of pepper spray by staff” at the five facilities “with respect to disabled inmates” ordered that the CDCR “significantly increase supervisory staff by posting additional sergeants on all watches on all yards” there.
Like orders as to RJD were amply supported by evidence, Friedland said, but isolated instances cited with respect to the five prisons, she wrote, were insufficient to justify the orders as to those facilities.
Pepper Spray
Addressing the use of pepper spray at RJD, the circuit judge wrote:
“The record describes numerous incidents in which RJD staff improperly pepper-sprayed class members—frequently in response to a class member’s request for a reasonable accommodation or in retaliation for a class member’s reporting staff misconduct. In one incident recounted by the district court, a group of officers tackled an inmate who had become upset after an officer denied his request to be handcuffed in a way that accommodated his disability. The inmate blacked out, and the officers pepper-sprayed him while he was unconscious.”
She continued:
“Plaintiffs’ experts, too, described various incidents in which RJD staff improperly pepper-sprayed class members. For example, after a wheelchair-bound inmate told an officer he was going to report him for unprofessional conduct because the officer called him a ‘retard,’ the officer pepper-sprayed the inmate, threw him from his wheelchair, and stomped on his back. Those and other incidents support the district court’s finding that reforms to RJD’s pepper-spray policy are necessary to correct violations of class members’ rights at RJD. And the measure itself is narrowly tailored and minimally intrusive of prison operations—the district court merely ordered Defendants to ‘more effectively monitor and control’ the use of pepper spray by staff, without dictating how Defendants were to do so.”
Supervisors on Watch
Friedland said the evidence supports Wilken’s order to “significantly increase supervisory staff by posting additional sergeants” on prison watches at RJD to prevent staff misconduct.
She also said that the evidence supports the order to make use of “additional cameras, both stationary and body-worn” at RJD and the five prisons, explaining:
“With more direct evidence showing what happened during an incident, it will matter less whether investigators are inclined to credit officers’ accounts of incidents over inmates’ accounts. And. as even Defendants’ experts noted, the installation of additional cameras will itself help to deter further violations.”
Non-Class Members
The CDCR and Gov. Gavin Newsom complained that Wilken accepted into evidence declarations from inmates at the five prisons who are mentally ill and not part of the Armstrong class. That was supportable, Friedland said, providing this reasoning:
“The district court was justified in viewing the non-class-member evidence as highly probative of the conditions faced by class members. For example, the district court described an incident at one of the Five Prisons in which an inmate who suffered from debilitating depression and anxiety was assaulted by officers after he asked to speak to his mental health clinician—and then experienced retaliation when he filed a complaint reporting the misconduct. Although that inmate’s specific disabilities fell outside the Armstrong class definition, the incident is probative of Plaintiffs’ claim that prison officials denied accommodations to disabled inmates and retaliated against those who reported such denials.”
She added:
“More generally, if an inmate sees officers retaliating against inmates who request accommodations for their disabilities, that inmate may think twice before requesting accommodations of his own, even if his disabilities are of a different kind. Witnessing retaliation against any disabled inmate—whether or not the inmate is a member of the Armstrong class—may accordingly deter class members from speaking up, contributing to the vicious cycle….”
In a separate memorandum opinion signed by Friedland and Circuit Judges Susan P. Graber and Eric D. Miller, the panel rejected the defendants’ contention that their due process rights were abridged by being limited in the number of depositions they could take of prisoners, saying:
“The district court permitted Defendants to conduct ten inmate depositions—the default maximum number provided in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and thus a presumptively reasonable quantity.”
The case is Armstrong v. Newsom, 21-15614.
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