Hendrix v. Faulkner

525 F. Supp. 435, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16872
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Indiana
DecidedOctober 21, 1981
DocketS 76-187, S 77-35 and S 79-32
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 525 F. Supp. 435 (Hendrix v. Faulkner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hendrix v. Faulkner, 525 F. Supp. 435, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16872 (N.D. Ind. 1981).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION, FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW, AND ORDER

SHARP, District Judge.

This action is a suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenging conditions' of confinement at the Indiana State Prison (hereinafter I.S.P.) at Michigan City, Indiana. The I.S.P. is an all male maximum security correctional facility, which has been in existence at the present location approximately 120 years. Jurisdiction is conferred by 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) and (4).

The Court has consolidated herein three actions, cause numbers S 76-187, S 77-35 and S 79-32, wherein the plaintiffs seek individual damages and injunctive and de *441 claratory relief on behalf of all inmates confined at the I.S.P. A class certification is sought and will be dealt with herein. Specifically, plaintiffs ask that the Court find, upon consideration of the totality of the conditions at the I.S.P., that those conditions violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Plaintiffs in S 76-187 whose claims have not been dismissed or severed are James Odis Hendrix, Grady Thomas Bobbitt, Melon Carroll, Donald R. Sceifers, and James Blackburn. Each is an offender incarcerated at the Prison. Defendants in S 76-187 are Gordon Faulkner, Commissioner, Jack Duckworth, Warden, and Edward Jones, Director of Classification and Treatment at the Prison.

Plaintiff in S 77-35 is Billie R. Adams, who is an offender incarcerated at the Prison. Defendants in S 77-35 are Jack Duck-worth, J. F. Kozlowski, P. G. Youngblood, Bob Glaney, R. Shriver, Rodney Keith, Ronald Batchelor, Byron Glick and G. Wilkins. J. F. Kozlowski is no longer employed at the Prison.

Plaintiffs in S 79-32 are Bruce Wellman, Dwight Walker, Douglas Shackelford a/k/a Achebe H. Lateef, Raymond Hurt, Richard Colvin and Stewart Brooks. Walker, Shackelford and Colvin are offenders incarcerated at the Prison. Wellman, Hurt and Brooks were previously incarcerated at the Prison. Defendants in S 79-32 are Gordon Faulkner, Norman Hunt, Cloid L. Shuler, Dean Nietzke, Jack Duckworth, Edward Jones, Major Gothel D. Wilkins, Ronald Freake, M.D., Roger D. Saylors, M.D., Captain Eugene Koziatek, Sgt. Byron Glick, Lt. Robert McKee, Officer John M. Sharp, Lt. John Riggs, Officer Bill J. Kennedy, and Lt. David G. Oden. Riggs is deceased. Saylors is no longer employed at the Prison and is not serving the Prison under contract. Kennedy is no longer employed at the Prison.

In cases of this kind, this Judge is every mindful of the limited right the federal courts have to adjudicate claims that arise from state prison confinement. Noted opinions have been handed down from every level of the federal court system that advise extreme caution in adjudicating claims that essentially involve the general administration of a state prison and do not reach, as they must, the level of constitutional violations. Justice Powell of the Supreme Court of the United States set forth the reason for this principle in striking and memorable language:

“[T]he problems of prisons in America are complex and intractable, and more to the point, they are not readily susceptible of resolution by decree. Most require expertise, comprehensive planning, and the commitment of resources, all of which are peculiarly within the province of the legislative and executive branches of government. For all of those reasons, courts are ill equipped to deal with the increasingly urgent problems of prison administration and reform. Judicial recognition of that fact reflects no more than a healthy sense of realism.” Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396 at 405, 94 S.Ct. 1800 at 1807, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1979).

The Supreme Court of the United States has continuously expressed its adherence to this doctrine of restraint from undue interference in the administration of state prisons unless federal constitutional violations and deprivation are clearly evident. The principle has been enunciated again and again with a variety in the language. The dominant thought remains clear. The most recent statement of this settled principle is contained in Rhodes v. Chapman, --- U.S. ---, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981), stating that courts must bear in mind that their inquires “spring from constitutional requirements and that judicial answers to them must reflect that fact rather than a court’s idea of how best to operate a detention facility.” Rhodes, supra, at ---, 101 S.Ct. at 2401, citing Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 539, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1874, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). Federal judges must be circumspect not to interfere without warrant and subject themselves to the suspicion that “it is the office of the good judge to enlarge his jurisdiction.” 1 Works of Thomas Jefferson 121-22 (Federal ed. 1904).

*442 This Judge has indicated from the beginning of this case to the present time, a complete and utter distaste for having to cross that Rubicon which separates the federal government from the state government and enter into the morass of the day to day operation of the prison.

THE PLAINTIFF CLASS

Plaintiffs have moved the Court to determine that this action should be maintained as a class action under Rules 23(a) and 23(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

A threshold requirement for class certification is the existence of a class which requires representation. Dolgow v. Anderson, 43 F.R.D. 472, 491 (E.D.N.Y. 1968), summary judgment rev’d, 438 F.2d 825 (2d Cir. 1971); Ridgeway v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 74 F.R.D. 597, 602 (D.Ill.1977). The class, as well as its members, must be clearly defined and identified with particularity. Williams v. Page, 60 F.R.D. 29, 34 (N.D.Ill.1973); Inmates of Lycoming County Prison v. Strode, 79 F.R.D. 228, 231 (M.D.Pa.1978).

The proposed class consists of “those prisoners who are, or may be in the future, confined at the Indiana State Prison, Michigan City, Indiana, in the custody of the Indiana Department of Correction.” This type of class has been described as “obviously definable and identifiable.” Inmates of Lycoming County Prison v. Strode, supra. In this context, it has further been said that:

“The use of the class action form is a desirable and logical way to challenge prison conditions and it only makes sense to include future inmates. See Santiago v. City of Philadelphia, 72 F.R.D. 619 (E.D.Pa.1976); Miller v. Carson, 401 F.Supp. 835 (M.D.Fla.1975); Dillard v. Pitchess, 399 F.Supp. 1225 (C.D.Cal. 1975).”

Inmates of Lycoming County Prison v. Strode, supra.

Each potential member of the class is not required to be identifiable, but merely “circumscribed by some objective set of criteria.” Ridgeway v.

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Bluebook (online)
525 F. Supp. 435, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16872, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hendrix-v-faulkner-innd-1981.