Trammell v. Keane

338 F.3d 155, 2003 WL 21770950
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit·Decided August 1, 2003·No. Docket No. 01-0025·Published·Cited by 67 cases

Opinion

JOHN M. WALKER, JR., Chief Judge.

Plaintiff-appellant Reginald Trammell, a New York State prisoner, appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Loretta Preska, District Judge), granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment and dismissing Trammell’s complaint brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In his complaint, Trammell claims various violations of his right to due process and his Eighth Amendment right to be free from “cruel and unusual punishment.” As we explain below, the only claim at issue in this appeal is Trammell’s contention that a deprivation order issued by a prison official on December 16, 1994 (“the Order” or “the December 16 Order”), and follow-up orders issued over the subsequent weeks, violated the Eighth Amendment. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court’s order granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Prison Disciplinary Actions

During the relevant period of time, Trammell was at New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility (“Sing Sing”), serving an indeterminate sentence of five to ten years for robbery in the second degree. People v. Trammell, 211 A.D.2d 527, 622 N.Y.S.2d 439 (1995), appeal denied, 85 N.Y.2d 944, 627 N.Y.S.2d 1006, 651 N.E.2d 931 (1995). By the time of the challenged incidents, Trammell had already earned a lengthy prison disciplinary record and had been indicted for assault on two occasions, including a “serious assault of a corrections officer.” As a consequence, Tram-mell was serving his sentence in the Special Housing Unit (“SHU”) when the events at issue in this case transpired.

Starting in November 1994, Trammell became more and more uncontrollable. In the five weeks from November 11, 1994 to December 16, 1994, Trammell was cited for no fewer than sixteen disciplinary violations. One of Trammell’s preferred forms of misbehavior was to throw various substances — such as drinks, soup, spit, urine, and feces — at correctional officers or others near his cell. Trammell does not dispute any of these facts.

In response to all of this misconduct, the corrections officers in the SHU imposed increasingly severe disciplinary measures. These generally took the form of prolonging his time in the SHU, taking away “good time” (effectively increasing his period of imprisonment) or issuing “deprivation orders” that curtailed privileges and amenities. As an example of the latter, for spitting on an officer on November 22, 1994, a hearing officer ordered that Tram-mell lose phone, commissary, and package privileges for thirty days. Again, after officers discovered contraband in Tram-mell’s cell on December 5, 1994, and cited him for “interference with [an] employee” and refusing to obey a direct order, Tram-mell lost phone, commissary, and package privileges for six months, as well as six months “good time.” Despite these disciplinary measures and deprivation orders, Trammell’s violent and unruly behavior continued.

Matters came to a head on December 16, 1994. Trammell spit or threw a liquid [158] at Correctional Officer Fernandez, a notary, who had gone to Trammell’s cell to notarize legal papers for him. Later that day, Deputy Superintendent Kehn issued the first of several deprivation orders that are the primary subject of this appeal. The December 16 Order, issued pursuant to 7 N.Y.C.R.R. § 305.2, deprived Tram-mell of “all state and personal property in [his] cell except one pair of shorts. No recreation, No shower, No hot water, No cell bucket because it is determined that a threat to the safety or security of staff, inmates, or state property exists.” Pursuant to the Order, the corrections officers removed all of Trammell’s clothing (except for one pair of undershorts), all of his toiletries (e.g., soap, toothpaste, toothbrush), his mattress, blanket, and cell bucket. Although the record is unclear, Trammell’s toilet paper was either removed, or he was left with an inadequate supply; in any event, he says he went about a week without toilet paper. The December 16 Order also extended the duration of a restricted diet of “nutriloaf ’ (a bread-like food containing carrots and potatoes) and raw cabbage for approximately 95 days. Trammell also alleges that a prior deprivation order was extended so that he was denied out-of-cell exercise from December 16, 1994 to January 6, 1995.

Pursuant to Section 305.2, all deprivation orders must be reviewed daily by the deputy superintendent and, if lasting more than seven days, must be reissued in writing every seven days. See 7 N.Y.C.R.R. § 305.2(c). The memorandum accompanying the December 16 Order stated that the terms of the deprivation would be “reviewed daily,” and told Trammell that his “property [would be] restored as your adjustment improves. Initially you will receive a blanket and mattress after a period of 48 hours without a Misbehavior Report.” 1

On December 17, 1994, Kehn and Captain Healy found that Trammell was wearing clothing that had apparently been lent to him by a fellow inmate. Kehn ordered the officers to remove Trammell’s clothing from him, and authorized them to subdue Trammell with tear gas in order to remove his clothing if he refused to voluntarily turn over the clothing. When Trammell refused to cooperate, the officers — defendants Kehn, Starks, Ercole, Healy, Buna-to, Gibson, Fitzgerald, and Pickett— [159] sprayed tear gas into Trammell’s cell, ordered him to lie down, restrained him using hand-cuffs and leg restraints, and carried him outdoors where they cut the clothing from his body. They then took him in his underwear to a shower where they washed him off before returning him to his cell.

Although there are minor disagreements regarding how long Trammell was deprived of various items, there is very little daylight between the assertions of the parties. Trammell maintains in his complaint that he was continuously deprived of clothing for three to four weeks, and was deprived of his mattress and blanket for slightly less time. Defendants’ contentions are more detailed, but they largely corroborate Trammell’s allegations and his testimony given in a state court hearing. On December 20, the officials returned Tram-mell’s mattress and blanket. On December 22, they returned his clothing, but on December 23, Superintendent Keane issued a new deprivation order, directing that all of Trammell’s property (including, presumably, his mattress and blanket) be removed. Defendants concede that “no separate misbehavior report documents” why this second order was issued and it remains unclear whether the order was put into effect. However, because for purposes of this appeal all evidentiary ambiguities must be resolved in Trammell’s favor, we will assume that all of Tram-mell’s property was removed again on December 23, 1994. In any event, there is no dispute that, on December 27, 1994, the full deprivation order was put back into effect after Trammell again threw liquid at a corrections officer.

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Trammell v. Keane, 338 F.3d 155, 2003 WL 21770950 (2d Cir. 2003).

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