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Jury finds conditions in Philly's largest jail to be "punishment" (UPDATED)
The first of potentially hundreds of trials over overcrowding and conditions in Philly jails found conditions there amount to punishment, however no damages were awarded.
Jury finds conditions in Philly's largest jail to be "punishment" (UPDATED)
Philly's jails are crowded beyond capacity, and they're filling up more month by month, despite the fact that all inmates serving two years or more are now being moved to state facilities. We wrote a few weeks ago about what's driving some of this crowding — now, a jury has been asked to decide if the conditions at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility (CFCF) are unconstitutional.
The case was Marcellous Minnick v. the City of Philadelphia, the first of a whopping 500something civil actions brought by inmates who say the overcrowding and understaffing at CFCF, where some inmates sleep three to a cell, negatively impacted their health or violated their civil rights. The city has faced similar litigation before, but court-appointed lawyer Gerald Williams of the firm Williams Cuker Berezofsky says it’s probably the largest number of such lawsuits to be consolidated for trial in succession.
Minnick spent almost a year as a pretrial detainee starting in September 2009; he was convicted on sex charges in August of 2010, but he’s still in jail awaiting sentencing. Before his arrest, he had been scheduled for a hip replacement due to a degenerative joint disorder. He wasn’t able to get the surgery, and developed a hernia and “severe dermatitis” (i.e. a rash) all while awaiting trial and sleeping in over-capacity cells.
In his complaint, he says he was often confined to a “blue boat” — a plastic cot on the floor — 16 hours a day, since there was nowhere else to go during frequent lockdowns.
Jurors got a window into life in the jails via video depositions from experts who toured the jails and examined their records. Leonard Rice, a sanitation expert, showed photos of blue boats and other mattresses with cracked covers or with no covers — just exposed, dirty foam — that were “way beyond the normal lifespan of a mattress.” He also pointed to possible contamination from soiled canvas laundry carts, which were “in deplorable condition” and were used to transport both clean and dirty laundry. He said insects and rodents are a frequent complaint, and observed “cumulative problems related to space, sanitary conditions and lack of cleanliness that’s chronic” and that “could be tied directly or indirectly to overpopulation.”
Madeleine LaMarre, an expert on prison health care, reported that inmates, confined to cells 10 to 12 hours a day, have no emergency recourse except for call buttons that are frequently ignored or disabled by guards. She said requests for medical care were often ignored or answered only after long delays, resulting in predictable “pain and suffering, and possible deterioration of their condition.” She said one inmate who was attacked and was urinating blood asked for medical help, but guards didn't pass on the request. Another man who had tested positive for the tuberculosis bacteria, suffered abdominal pain, severe weight loss and other symptoms and had to wait six months for care; she said he could have had a full-blown case of tuberculosis and no treatment. Nurses, meanwhile, who are the first front of care in the prisons, have almost no latitude to administer treatment, meaning even longer waits for inmates to receive needed care.
As for Minnick, who finally received surgery in 2011 — and received only Tylenol in the meantime — “he suffered unnecessarily,” LaMarre said.
Jurors disagreed: They did find that the conditions Minnick faced amounted to punishment. But they said the overcrowding was related to a legitimate government purpose and that he sustained no injury, and so could receive no damages.
Williams told CP that the jury had in effect found that the conditions at CFCF were unconstitutional: "We're happy that our claim about the conditions has been vindicated," though Minnick will not benefit from that result, he said.
However, attorneys from the city said on the contrary that they had won the case, effectively, because the overcrowding was found to be for a legitimate reason and was therefore constitutionally allowed. Craig Straw, chief deputy with the civil rights unit at the city Law Department, said, "The jury found that placing an individual in a triple cell can constitute punishment, but it's not unconstitutional in this case.... We consider this a clear victory on the city's part, showing that the prisons, by triple celling, are meeting all fo the constitutional requirements. So from our perspective, it places the future plaintiffs in a much more difficult position." Minnick's and six others scheduled for trial are considered to be "bellwether cases" that could well indicate how the other 450 to 500 cases will pan out.
Amanda Shoffel, a lawyer for the city, told the jury that Philly doesn’t think its prisons are “operating in a state of constant perfection.” But it’s trying to be “progressive and creative,” and is over time replacing and retrofitting showers and mattresses to meet modern sanitation standards. Whether such efforts will be enough to win over several hundred more juries, if necessary, remains to be seen.
Guess Minnick shouldn't have committed a crime then.
Convicted on sex charges? I bet his victim has more problems than a sore hip and a rash.— DeltaV- For God sakes he can't live in society so he gets what ever.what about the woman he raped the minor.come on now he has no rights hes a pig.what about your victim???????— bernbaby
- Well, you have listed the reason the lead plaintiff, Minnick, is in jail. I don't think anyone has argued that he shouldn't be in jail. the questuion is whether the jail conditions under which he and the thousands of other prisoners, the vast majority being folks awaiting trial having neither a conviction nor enough money to make bail and of whom many will turn out to be innocent, and non-violent drug offenders, the vast majority for marijuana. What Minnick did is a crime and that is why he is being punished. However, it is also a crime to mistreat thousands of citizens and violate their constitutional rights. I rather doubt that the criminals behind this much larger-scale crime will probably not do a single day in jail for their atrocities, unlike Minnick. Furthermore, it has been shown that harsh conditions of incarceration INCREASES the chances that someone will re-offend, so when we cite Minnick's recidivism, shouldn't we also be looking at those corrections officials who made a monster into a bigger monster?— Blanketman
- Also, denying someone tuberculosis treatemnt in a jail? Well, that not only endangers everyone in the jail- staff, visitors, and EVERY prisoner- including minor probation violations, parking tickets, marijuana, shoplifting, etc.(since those minor cases are for what a majority of the population of PPS are being held)- but all the folks in which they come into contact. So not only are you saying that the guy doing time for marijuana DESERVES to die from TB, you are saying that all the COs, all the visiting clergy, the medical and other staff, and EVERYBODY THAT PERSON ENCOUNTERS AFTER BEING RELEASED all deserve to get TB and die? Please explain why the 84 bus driver who picks up someone released from State Road "deserves" to get TB?— Blanketman
- To quote the Courthouse News, to which one of the links lead, "Hundreds of current and former inmates sued the city, challenging conditions at jails run by the Philadelphia Prison System. Lawsuits from six men, representing a cross-section of the larger pool of jail-condition cases, have been selected for trial."
So it's not just Minnick. If you want to try to argue that the plaintiffs "deserved" these conditions, then please explain why each and every one of the hundreds of prisoners- or the at least the six in the specific cases discussed before the jury- actually "deserved" this treatment. Also, to make this argument, you will have to argue why the Eighth Amendment prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" shouldn't exist and why our Founding Fathers were wrong when they made it the law of the land that they were certain things the state couldn't do to an individual, no matter what they did. I think that the Founding Fathers were aware of the fact that folks who have been convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison did do something bad. Believe it or not, folks were murdering and raping back in colonial times also, when the Constitution was written.— Blanketman 
Comment removed.- I feel that this is just fundamentally wrong. I believe that if you are incarcerated, you gave up all of your "Rights" when you committed a crime. This is just a waste of time and money.These suits should all be thrown out. Criminals should suffer for their crimes and have them re-instated when they have served their time. I know...good luck with that!— jcpaul
- Comment removed.
- someone send him a copy of eric volz gringo nightmare— ALB328
- Send them to some of the prisons in the 3rd world countries as part of an exchange program. They'll be begging for those blue boats like they were water beds. You did the crime now do the time!!! Our soldiers overseas don't have it as nice as some of these animals.— someguynamedjohn
- I think his case was just used as an extreme example... but there are lots of others in there not as violent as him.. living in the same conditions... my good friend was held in there for 18mths on a material witness warrant... meaning... he had committed no crime... they were holding him there to testify at an upcoming trial of drug kingpin...that he was essentially scared of.... he had to live through those conditions... and what about the guy thats innocent, and just cant afford bail... that place is a craphole... and needs to be shut down... not even animals deserve to live in that squalor. Criminal or not... it does not exclude one from being a member of the human race.— ive_hicks1
- So your friend knew a drug kingpin but was not involved in illegal activity. Give me a break. So your law abiding friend what happened to his legal tax paying job after 18 months, did the company hold it for him.
All law abiding tax paying citizens please raise your hand if you know a drug kingpin...— fedupphilly - Are you aware of how wide-reaching the conspiracy laws are? Are you aware of the fact that one can be held on a material witness warrant with no evidence of your having committed a crime and little that you know anything about one being committed? His friend was NEVER CONVICTED of anything, but you assume without ANY EVIDENCE that he must be guilty of something. From my experience of working as social worker with inmates in the Philly jail, I'm pretty sure his friend lost his job and probably his home and most of his possessions with it after 18 months.
I can't believe that you are going to slander someone you don't know with NO CAUSE what so ever. If you don't know what happened in this guy's case, then don't make BS up to attack him and justify your know-nothing hateful position towards folks who are being slowly murdered in our jails.
Furthermore, given the wide-ranging definition of "drug kingpin," most "law-abiding tax-paying citizens: probably know somebody who may fit that definition. I can say that there is a MUCH greater chance that you know SOMEOMNE who could be construed as a "kingpin" right now. After all, the authorities had his friend in jail for 18 months, so I'm sure they dug up everything they could on him and found nothing. Otherwise, they would have charged him with something,rather than holding him on a material witness warrant.
If there is any karma in this world, there is a similar warrant with your name on it, fedupphilly, sending a van of officers to rock your world right now because of some former roommate or hell, literally ANYBODY you may have ever known something about whom the police think may have something to do with something. Can you tell me 100% that NO ONE you have EVER met has EVER been involved in any illegal activity at all, even something they may have not told you about? Are you really, REALLY sure, fedupphiilly, because I wouldn't taunt karma like that.— Blanketman - That's why they call it "jail." If it was fun, they'd call it something else. When many of them aren't in jail, they use the health system for their free housing.— Curmudgeon
- Perhaps we need to wall off a large section of desert and let the complainers fend for themselves.— Louie DePalma
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