Anderson v. Colorado, Department of Corrections

848 F. Supp. 2d 1291, 2012 WL 991620, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40417
CourtDistrict Court, D. Colorado
DecidedMarch 26, 2012
DocketCivil Action No. 10-cv-01005-RBJ-KMT
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 848 F. Supp. 2d 1291 (Anderson v. Colorado, Department of Corrections) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Anderson v. Colorado, Department of Corrections, 848 F. Supp. 2d 1291, 2012 WL 991620, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40417 (D. Colo. 2012).

Opinion

ORDER

R. BROOKE JACKSON, District Judge.

This civil rights case is set for a trial to the Court commencing April 30, 2012. Four motions are pending, one of which [# 77] is not yet ripe but will be mentioned briefly at the end of this order. This order addresses the other pending motions: plaintiffs motion for partial summary judgment on his Fourth Claim in which he asserts that defendants have violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment by depriving him of any outdoor exercise [# 47]; defendants’ motion for summary judgment on all claims [# 48]; and plaintiffs motion to reopen discovery for a limited purpose [# 65].

FACTS. 1

Mr. Anderson is an inmate in the Colorado Department of Corrections, also [1295]*1295known as CDOC. For more than 11 years, with the exception of a one-month period in 2001 when he was sent to another facility for a mental health evaluation, he has been incarcerated at the Colorado State Penitentiary. This is a maximum security facility where each inmate is placed in administrative segregation, sometimes called “Ad Seg.” Mr. Anderson is confined alone in a small cell at all times except for approximately five visits each week of about one to one and one quarter hours each when he is taken to a similarly small cell with a pull-up bar for exercise followed by a shower. He has essentially no direct human contact except with CDOC staff.

Although his lengthy Complaint described a long list of issues, the gist of this case can fairly be divided into three separate but related complaints. First, he alleges that he has been denied appropriate diagnosis and treatment for serious mental health issues. Second, because the Colorado State Penitentiary provides no facility for outside exercise, he has not seen the sun or the outside world for more than eleven years, resulting in physical and mental harm. Third, although inmates theoretically can earn their way out of the Colorado State Penitentiary by successfully completing a five-level Quality of Life Level Program (“QLLP”), he has been unable to do so because of an arbitrary demerit system that in turn punishes his improperly treated mental illness.

Mr. Anderson asserts six claims: (1) that he has been deprived of a liberty interest without the due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment by the manner in which defendants have administered demerits, called “negative chrons,” that has prevented him from progressing to higher levels and ultimately out of Ad Seg; (2) that he has been deprived of a liberty interest without due process by reason of defendants’ failure to provide an appropriate medication request and review procedure and, therefore, necessary medications; (3) that defendants’ failure to provide appropriate mental health treatment has also violated his Eighth (and Fourteenth) Amendment right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment; (4) that defendant’s denial of outdoor exercise over the period of time Mr. Anderson has been in Ad Seg violates his Eighth (and Fourteenth) Amendment right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment due to defendants’ denial of outdoor exercise; (5) that discrimination on the basis of his mental impairment violates the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.; and (6) such discrimination also violates the Rehabilitation, Comprehensive Services, and Developmental Disabilities Act of 1978 (“Rehabilitation Act”), 29 U.S.C. § 794 et seq.

CONCLUSIONS.

A. Plaintiff’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment [# 47].

Plaintiff seeks a summary judgment that denial of outdoor exercise for more than 11 years violates his right to be free of cruel -and unusual punishment. The Eighth Amendment applies to state action through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. To establish that a condition of confinement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, an inmate must show both an objective component, i.e., that a prison deprivation was sufficiently serious (such as by denying the minimal civilized measure of life necessities) and a subjective component, i.e., that prison officials acted with a culpable state of mind (some form of wanton conduct at least amounting to deliberate indifference as compared to inadvertence or good faith error). Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 298-304, 111 S.Ct. 2321, 115 L.Ed.2d 271 (1991). To obtain summary judgment, plaintiff must show that it is beyond any genuine dispute of fact that he has been [1296]*1296subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a).

The Tenth Circuit has on occasion addressed prisoner demands for outdoor exercise. In one case it noted that “[tjhere is substantial agreement among the cases in this area that some form of outdoor exercise is extremely important to the psychological and physical well being of inmates, and some courts have held a denial of fresh air and exercise to be cruel and unusual punishment under certain circumstances.” Bailey v. Shillinger, 828 F.2d 651, 653 (10th Cir.1987). To my knowledge, however, no court has held that denial of fresh air and exercise is a per se Eighth Amendment violation. It depends on the facts of the particular case.

In Ajaj v. U.S., 293 Fed.Appx. 575 (10th Cir.2008)(unpublished) the court considered allegations that the inmate had been prevented from exercising outside during his first year at the Administrate Maximum United States Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado and intermittently thereafter. Those allegations did not rise to the level of an Eighth Amendment violation. Id. at 584. However, “a factfinder might conclude that the risk of harm from three years of deprivation of any form of outdoor exercise was obvious and that DOC officials disregarded that risk by keeping [the inmate] in administrative segregation.” Fogle v. Pierson, 435 F.3d 1252, 1260 (10th Cir.2006).

Plaintiff contends that virtually all other federal and state prisons in the country, including the most secure institutions, provide an outdoor exercise facility; that prison experts agree that this is appropriate and important; that the Colorado State Penitentiary has an outdoor courtyard that was designed for outdoor recreation but is used for storage; that the Penitentiary also has substantial open space where an outdoor recreation area could be located; that, particularly due to the length of his deprivation of such exercise, Mr. Anderson has sustained both physical and mental harm; and that CDOC’s continued failure and refusal to make outdoor exercise available to him constitutes deliberate indifference.

Defendants respond that Mr. Anderson is able to exercise indoors, and that he has not shown that the inability to exercise outdoors causes physical or mental harm. Defendants argue that providing daily outdoor exercise to approximately 750 offenders (a request that Mr. Anderson does not appear to be making) is not feasible; that giving Mr.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
848 F. Supp. 2d 1291, 2012 WL 991620, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40417, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anderson-v-colorado-department-of-corrections-cod-2012.