Green v. Ferrell

801 F.2d 765
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedOctober 8, 1986
DocketNo. 85-4863
StatusPublished
Cited by94 cases

This text of 801 F.2d 765 (Green v. Ferrell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Green v. Ferrell, 801 F.2d 765 (5th Cir. 1986).

Opinion

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge:

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In February 1979, plaintiffs filed their original complaint, alleging that conditions in the Adams County Jail violated their civil rights. The trial court originally dismissed the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. This court reversed the trial court’s dismissal and remanded the case for a trial on the merits. Green v. Ferrell, 664 F.2d 1292 (5th Cir.1982). On remand, the trial court certified the plaintiff class as “all present and future inmates of the Adams County Jail.” The parties tried the case before a magistrate during July and December 1983.1 The magistrate entered his opinion on August 7, 1985 and judgment on October 31, 1985.

That judgment granted the class plaintiffs in Green injunctive relief in four areas: “tight celling,” food, laundry and personal hygiene, and exercise. It rejected the rest of the class plaintiffs’ claims and also rejected the individual claims of Moses Belton. Defendants appeal that part of the judgment granting injunctive relief. Class plaintiffs cross appeal the magistrate’s denying relief in three areas: access to courts, access to newspapers, and medical care. Moses Belton appeals the denial of his damages claim.

We affirm the magistrate’s judgment as it applies to disciplinary “tight celling.” We reverse all other injunctive relief. In addition, we conclude that prohibiting newspapers violates the inmates’ first amendment rights and that the jail provides insufficient access to the courts. We remand to the magistrate to consider the appropriate relief. We also affirm the [767]*767take-nothing judgment against Moses Bel-ton.

II. THE APPEAL

A. “Tight Celling”

The plaintiff class includes both convicted prisoners (who serve their sentence in the county jail because the state penitentiary is overcrowded) and pre-trial detainees.2 Every inmate in the Adams County Jail has his own cell, which measures approximately 60 square feet and includes a bed, a mattress, a face bowl with hot and cold water, a commode, and a light. The jail has central heating and air conditioning. Each cell block opens onto a day room, where the inmates eat, exercise, and shower. Although the parties use the term “tight cell” in a variety of ways, generally the term refers to the condition of being locked in an individual cell for 24 hours a day without access to the day room. The jailers “tight cell” prisoners for both security and punishment reasons. Prisoners not in “tight cell” had access to the day room for 5 hours a day at the time of the trial. Daily access to the day room fluctuated between twelve hours and two hours during the course of the litigation.

Plaintiffs argue and the magistrate found that “tight celling is sometimes accomplished without any notice or hearing regarding the offense for which the inmate is so confined, or with a hearing scheduled days after the commencement of the tight cell confinement.” Although the record contains conflicting testimony, the magistrate resolved those conflicts in favor of the inmates. After examining the record, we cannot say that his finding is clearly erroneous. The magistrate enjoined the defendants to comply with the notice and hearing requirements of Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), and Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), in both disciplinary and administrative situations. We affirm the magistrate’s judgment as it applies to disciplinary “tight-cell-ing,” but we reverse that portion of the magistrate’s judgment that requires notice and a hearing within a reasonable time after the “tight celling in non-punitive, security-related situations.”

To prove that “tight celling” without notice and a hearing violates their civil rights, plaintiffs must first demonstrate a liberty interest protected by the fourteenth amendment. “Liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment may arise from two sources — the Due Process Clause itself and the laws of the States.” Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 466, 103 S.Ct. at 868. The due process clause by itself does not protect an inmate from any treatment that is “ ‘within the sentence imposed upon him and is not otherwise violative of the Constitu-tion_’” Id. at 468, 103 S.Ct. at 869 (quoting Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 242, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 2547, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976)). For example, the due process clause does not protect inmates placed in solitary confinement. Id.; McCrae v. Hankins, 720 F.2d 863, 866 (5th Cir.1983). “Tight cell” is “the sort of confinement that inmates should reasonably anticipate receiving at some point in their incarceration.” Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 468, 103 S.Ct. at 870.

Because the due process clause alone does not protect the liberty interest at stake in “tight celling” plaintiffs must prove that Mississippi created a protected liberty interest in their access to the day room. In Hemtt, the Court held that “the repeated use of explicitly mandatory language in connection with requiring specific substantive predicates demands a conclusion that the State has created a protected liberty interest.” 459 U.S. at 471, 103 S.Ct. at 871. In Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. [768]*768238, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983), the Court emphasized the fact that mandatory procedures alone do not create a liberty interest protected by the fourteenth amendment: “Process is not an end in itself. Its constitutional purpose is to protect a substantive interest to which the individual has a legitimate claim of entitlement. If officials may transfer a prisoner ‘for whatever reason or for no reason at all,’ ... there is no such interest for process to protect.” Id. at 250, 103 S.Ct. at 1748 (citations omitted).

In McCrae, Louisiana mandated certain procedures before placing a prisoner in “extended lockdown.” 720 F.2d at 867. In accordance with Olim, we proceeded to look for substantive limitations on “extended lockdown” and found them in the following Louisiana Department of Corrections regulation:

‘No prisoner can be placed in extended lockdown for any reason unless he has been ... found guilty of violating one or more serious rules [listed elsewhere], or of being dangerous to himself or others, or of being a serious escape risk, or of being in need of protection, or of posing a clear threat to the security of the facility, or of being the subject of an investigation conducted by non-institutional authorities into a serious felony.’

Id. at 868 (quoting Louisiana Department of Corrections Disciplinary Rules and Procedures for Adult Prisoners at 6 (March 15, 1981)). Thus we concluded that “Louisiana inmates do have a substantive interest in being free of extended lockdown.” Id. (footnote omitted).

Plaintiffs cannot point to any statute or rule like the one in McCrae

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801 F.2d 765, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/green-v-ferrell-ca5-1986.