HOLT V. SARVER 1969 - THE SUPREME COURT ADDRESSES THE DARK & EVIL WORLD - Law - http://maxpages.com/arklaw/Holt_v_Sarver_Part

The Court is of the view that if the State of Arkansas chooses to confine [**17] penitentiary inmates in barracks with other inmates, they ought at least to be able to fall asleep at night without fear of having their throats cut before morning, and that the State has failed to discharge a constitutional duty in failing to take steps to enable them to do so.

IV.

The isolation unit at Cummins consists of a one-story concrete block building surrounded by a tall metal fence. Inside that building are 12 cells arranged in a single row on one side of the building. Eleven of those cells are used to confine inmates; the other has been fitted up as a shower room. The building is heated by gas, and there are blowers to provide ventilation. In hot weather the exterior door or doors of the building are left open to provide circulation.

The building has no windows; however, electric lights are burned so that the inmates are not confined in darkness during daylight hours. The fronts of the individual cells are closed in part by concrete walls and for the rest by solid metal doors. At the bottom of each door is a small movable grating through which food trays are pushed and
later recovered.

The individual cells are ten feet long by approximately eight feet wide; the [**18] record does not reflect how high they are, but photographs indicate that the distance from floor to ceiling substantially exceeds the height of a man. The cells are completely bare of furniture, probably due to the tendency of inmates to tear up pieces of furniture that might be put in the cells. Each cell contains a drinking fountain, and each is equipped with a concrete toilet. An examination of the photographs makes it rather clear that while the toilets will flush, they cannot be flushed by a person inside the cell. It is not clear whether the toilets can be covered firmly so as to hold down odors; the photographs suggest that some of them are covered with pieces of tarpaulin or other material.

There seem to be three classes of inmates in the isolation cells: (1) Prisoners confined in isolation for rule infractions; (2) Prisoners held in the cells as a measure of "protective custody," the purpose of which is to protect them from other inmates; (3) Prisoners who are general escape or security risks or who are awaiting trial on additional criminal charges.

Theoretically, a prisoner is not committed to isolation for a rule infraction until he has been found guilty by the administrative [**19] court described in the evidence. In practice, however, a prisoner [*832] may be put in the unit before hearing and may stay there for several days prior to hearing. An infraction of rules usually produces a sentence of a definite number of days, and some of the sentences are for rather long periods. Common rule ifractions resulting in confinement in the unit are
insubordination, fighting, and refusing to work, and it appears that some prisoners deliberately refuse to work or temporarily disable themselves to avoid work.

An inmate of the Farm may be put into the unit for protective custody if he requests that action provided that the Penitentiary authorities think that he needs protection. Protective custody confinements are usually of indefinite duration.

Inmates in protective custody usually are sent to their regular work each day and are served regular prison food. Inmates who are kept in the unit 24 hours a day are served a food mixture known as "grue." "Grue" consists of meat, potatoes, vegetables, eggs, oleo, syrup, and seasoning baked all together in a pan and served in four inch squares. The Court finds that while "grue" is not appetizing and is not served attractively, [**20] it is a wholesome and sufficient diet for men in close confinement day after day. The Court observed all of the petitioners, and none of them appeared to be suffering from malnutrition.

The "grue" is delivered at the isolation unit on plates or trays and is pushed to the inmates through the gratings at the bottoms of the doors. At times portions of the food are knocked off of the plates as they are pushed through the gratings. There is some evidence that at times trays of food are left on the ground outside the unit, and that in instances the food has been tainted by dogs or birds. However, the Court is convinced that such instances have been rare if they have occurred at all.

The Court finds that the isolation cells are dirty and unsanitary, that they are pervaded by bad odors from the toilets, and that the plain cotton mattresses on which the inmates sleep are uncovered and dirty. Those conditions are due at least in part to the fact that the inmates take little or no interest in keeping their cells clean and in part to the overcrowded conditions of the cells presently to be described.

Confinement in the isolation cells is not "solitary confinement" in the conventional sense [**21] of that term. On the contrary, the cells are substantially overcrowded. As of the time of the hearing only two of the cells were occupied by one man only, and they were so occupied only because of the fact that the two individuals confined therein are too dangerous to be put with other prisoners. The average number of men confined in a single cell seems to be four, but at times the number has been much higher. In extreme circumstances as many as ten or eleven men have been in the same cell at the same time.

As stated, inmates of the isolation unit sleep on mattresses which are spread on the cell floors. During daylight hours the mattresses are removed from the cells of the men who are required to remain in the cells 24 hours a day. The mattresses of the "protective custody" inmates who work remain in the cells all day. The mattresses that are removed from the cells are piled indiscriminately in the corridor of the unit and are indiscriminately returned to the inmates at night. Thus an inmate has no assurance that the mattress alloted to him on any night is the same one that he had the night before or the same one that he will have the next night. That problem is aggravated [**22] by the fact that some of the inmates of the cells suffer from infectious diseases. In that connection the evidence discloses that one inmate died recently in the infirmary of infectious hepatitis after having been confined in isolation for a number of days. And one of the petitioners who is in the same cell as other men testified that he is suffering from venereal disease. It should [*833] be aid, however, that there is no evidence that any inmate has as yet contracted a serious contagious disease from another inmate.

Theoretically, inmates are permitted to take showers twice a week. In practice, that schedule is not adhered to consistently, and it is possible that individual inmates may not avail themselves of an opportunity to shower.

Inmates of the cells who are there for purposes of discipline are not permitted to exercise outside their cells. Prior to May 28 the same rule applied to inmates in protective custody who did not work; the Court understands, however, that since that date such inmates have been allowed reasonable exercise. The inmates who work get exercise, of course, while they are at their daily
tasks.

Without undertaking to state with specificity the [**23] exact point at which one of the isolation cells becomes "overcrowded" rather than simply "crowded," and two men are a crowd in an 8 X 10 cell when they have to stay there 24 hours a day for days or weeks on end, the Court finds that the cells have been chronically overcrowded, and that overcrowding to a greater or lesser extent will unavoidably continue until such time as more isolation cells are available.

In evaluating from a constitutional standpoint confinement in isolation as practiced at Cummins, the Court will observe that it does not find that any of the present inmates of the isolation were put there unnecessarily, unjustly, arbitrarily, or discriminatorily. The inmates of the unit who are there for discipline have deserved their
punishment. Those who are there for the protection of themselves and other inmates should be kept away from the general prison population.

Confinement in isolation is now the only stringent disciplinary measure available at Cummins since the Court of Appeals has enjoined the use of the strap. If confinement of that type is to serve any useful purpose, it must be rigorous, uncomfortable, and unpleasant.

However, there are limits to the rigor [**24] and discomfort of close confinement which a State may not constitutionally exceed, and the Court finds that those limits have been exceeded here. The Court finds that the prolonged confinement of numbers of men in the same cell under the conditions that have been described is mentally and emotionally traumatic as well as physically uncomfortable. It is hazardous to health. It is degrading and debasing; it offends modern sensibilities, and, in the Court's estimation, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

V.

The task of the Court in devising a remedy in this case is both difficult and delicate.

Subject to constitutional limitations, Arkansas is a sovereign State. It has a right to make and enforce criminal laws, to imprison persons convicted of serious crimes, and to maintain order and discipline in its prisons. This Court has no intention of entering a decree herein that will disrupt the Penitentiary or leave respondent and his subordinates helpless to deal with dangerous and unruly convicts.

The Court has recognized heretofore the financial handicaps under which the Penitentiary system is laboring, and the Court knows that Respondent cannot make bricks without straw. [**25]

However, the Court is convinced that given the will Respondent with the means now available to him and that will become available to him at the commencement of the new fiscal year that begins on July 1 can make a substantial start toward alleviating the conditions that the Court has found to be unconstitutional. He will be ordered to do so.

The Court will not undertake at this time to prescribe any specific immediate steps to be taken by Respondent. The Court would like to know first what Respondent thinks that he can do, and what he is willing to undertake to do. There are some suggestions that the Court is prepared to make.

[*834] First, in allocating funds and assigning free world personnel to duties, Respondent should give the highest priority to the safety of inmates of the barracks and to alleviating existing conditions in the isolation unit. If that is done, Respondent may find that he can put free world guards into the barracks proper and dispense with the
"floorwalkers." Although the Court recognizes that it might be unwise to spend a large amount of money on temporary facilities in view of the contemplated construction of the new maximum security unit, Respondent [**26] may also find that he will be able to build some additional isolation cells.

Second, there is evidence to the effect that some inmates are more of a problem at one farm than they are at the other. Consideration might be given to transferring certain individual inmates from Cummins to Tucker.

Third, every effort should be made to hold the number of persons confined in a single isolation cell at one time to a minimum. That may involve more selectivity in imposing isolation as a punishment, or shorter sentences, or more flexible sentences. In the field of criminology it has been observed that long terms of imprisonment imposed on persons convicted of crime are not necessarily more efficacious as crime deterrents than shorter sentences, and the same thing may hold good within the walls of penal institutions.

Fourth, in ordinary cases inmates should not be long confined in isolation in advance of hearing, and consideration might be given to an automatic review of the actions of all sentencing panels.

Finally, Respondent ought to be able at minimum expense to do something about the sanitary conditions of the cells and he might give consideration to doing so without much regard to the [**27] attitudes of the inmates. Certainly, something can be done about the condition of the mattresses and it can be assured at least that an inmate will sleep on the same mattress every night. Most important, seriously ill men should not be confined in close contact with other prisoners.

The foregoing suggestions happen to be those that occur to the Court at the moment; the Court does not suggest that they are necessarily all of the steps that can and should be taken.

In the decree to be entered Respondent will be directed to report to the Court within 30 days as to what steps he in fact plans to take, and jurisdiction of the case will be retained for all appropriate purposes.

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