Opinion
No. CV07-4002006
June 13, 2011
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION
On October 16, 2007, the pro se petitioner filed for a writ of habeas corpus in which he claims that his constitutional right to protection against cruel and unusual punishment has been violated due to the Department of Correction's failure to house him in a single cell. He further alleges he is treated differently due to his race, both in violation of his eighth and fourteenth amendment rights. Specifically, the petitioner claims that he is "double celled," i.e., housed with another inmate in a double cell. The respondent's return denies the claims as "incomplete and/or inaccurate" and asserts that petitioner's confinement is not violative of the eighth amendment. For reasons set out more fully below, the petition is denied.
The petitioner filed another habeas corpus petition, docketed as CV 08-4002864, which was consolidated into the instant matter.
The matter came to trial on January 26, 2010, at which time the Court heard testimony from the petitioner and Department of Correction employee, Captain Dwayne Kelley, Operations Captain at Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center. Neither petitioner nor respondent entered any documentary evidence. The respondent filed a pre-trial brief and, at the parties' request, the court permitted the filing of post-trial briefs upon receipt of the transcript. After the receipt of the transcript, the court entered an order on April 19, 2011, requiring the petitioner to file his post-trial brief on or before May 19, 2011, with the respondent's brief due on or before June 2, 2011, respectively. Neither party has filed a post-trial brief.
The Court has reviewed all of the testimony and makes the following findings of fact.
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. The petitioner is in custody of the Commissioner of Correction and confined pursuant to a mittimus issued on January 15, 1988, issued by the Fairfield Judicial District, sentencing petitioner to a total effective sentence of sixty years.
2. At the habeas trial the petitioner testified that he was presently housed at Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center in Uncasville, Connecticut. He further stated that for the last fifteen to twenty years he has been "double celled" and that, although the space should be at least sixty-three square feet for double celling, the cells are only fifty-five square feet. Petitioner also testified that he was not currently seeing a psychologist or other mental health professional.
3. Dwayne Kelley, the Operations Captain at Corrigan-Radgowski, also testified at the habeas trial. He stated that he had been an employee of the Department of Correction for about twenty years. Prior to this position, Mr. Kelley supervised two housing units at Corrigan-Radgowski for about six years as unit manager, one of those units being the orientation intake housing unit where all the newly committed and new transfers to the facility were housed.
4. Captain Kelley described Corrigan-Radgowski as being made up of eight general population units, four of which hold ninety-six inmates and are double celled. Another four hold ninety-four inmates where two of the cells in each of those four units are handicapped cells for inmates who are in wheelchairs. He further stated that unless you have a handicap approved by medical, you will not get a single cell in general population.
5. Captain Kelley further noted that the Department of Correction goes to great lengths to determine whether or not two men are compatible to live together in a cell. Such factors as sentence, charges, discipline history, escape attempts, gang involvement, and past assaults on staff or inmates, among other factors, are all reviewed before two inmates are assigned to a cell.
6. Captain Kelley testified that the cells at Corrigan-Radgowski are six feet by nine feet. He further stated that the facility was one of the newer correctional facilities in that it was built in 1995, has up to date lighting and heating and is cleaned daily by a professional cleaning staff. He also stated that that housing two inmates in a cell is professionally acceptable by correctional standards. He further observed inmates generally prefer to have a cellmate to talk to and inmates very rarely complain about double celling.
7. The Court will discuss additional facts as needed.
DISCUSSION
The petitioner alleges that double celling is cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The petitioner further alleges that he has been double-celled for much, if not all, of his time while incarcerated. According to the petitioner, there is no systematic way of selecting or screening inmates who will be double-celled. Thus, as the petitioner further avers, he "has been subjected to many inmates suffering from many psychological disorders such as paranoia-schizophrenic and other mental diseases." Petition, pg. 3. The Department of Correction has never "passed," according to the petitioner, double celling and is not permitted by any state statute. Lastly, the petitioner contends that double celling is a racist policy.
"The [e]ighth [a]mendment prohibits the infliction of cruel and unusual punishments. U.S. Const. amend VIII. This includes punishments that involve the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 173 [ 96 S.Ct. 2909], 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976)." Faraday v. Commissioner of Correction, 288 Conn. 326, 338, 952 A.2d 764 (2008). "The eighth amendment, which applies to the states through the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution; see, e.g., Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 344-45, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981); `prohibits detention in a manner that constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.' Hunnicutt v. Commissioner of Correction, 67 Conn.App. 65, 66, 787 A.2d 22 (2001). `Cruel and unusual punishment refers to punishment that involves the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain or is grossly disproportionate to the severity of the crime.' Santiago v. Commissioner of Correction, 39 Conn.App. 674, 683, 667 A.2d 304 (1995). Under the eighth amendment, `prison officials must ensure that inmates receive adequate food, clothing, shelter, and medical care, and must take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates . . .' (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994)." Fuller v. Commissioner of Correction, 75 Conn.App. 133, 136, 815 A.2d 208, cert. denied, 263 Conn.App. 65, 66, 787 A.2d 1217 (2003).
In Fuller, "the petitioner filed a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that the conditions of her confinement violated the eighth amendment. Specifically, she argued that the respondent commissioner of correction inflicted cruel and unusual punishment on her by failing to have a housing classification system that separated violent and nonviolent prisoners. The petitioner further argued that the respondent's practice of confining two inmates in the same cell (double celling) resulted in a loss of her privacy, subjected her to malodorous and unhealthy conditions, and required her to live with numerous cellmates who made threatening comments. Finally, the petitioner argued that the respondent acted with `deliberate indifference' when he failed to take appropriate preventive measures to protect her from being physically assaulted by an allegedly violent cellmate. In response, the respondent asserted that he did not violate the petitioner's eighth amendment right, because he was unaware of an obvious risk to her health or safety. Following a two-day evidentiary hearing, the court dismissed the petition and later granted a petition for certification to appeal." Id., at 135.
The Appellate Court noted that "[e]very injury suffered . . . at the hands of an inmate does not necessarily translate into constitutional liability for prison officials. See [ Farmer v. Brennan, supra, 511 U.S. 834]. In challenging the conditions of confinement, the prisoner must meet two requirements. First, the alleged deprivation of adequate conditions must be objectively, sufficiently serious; id.; such that the petitioner was denied `the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities . . .' (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 298, 111 S.Ct. 2321, 115 L.Ed.2d 271 (1991). Second, the official involved must have had a sufficiently culpable state of mind described as "deliberate indifference" to inmate health or safety. Farmer v. Brennan, supra, 511 U.S. 834. In that context, subjective deliberate indifference means that `a prison official cannot be found liable under the [e]ighth [a]mendment for denying an inmate humane conditions of confinement unless the official knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety . . .' Id., 837.
"Applying those standards to the facts of [ Fuller], [the Appellate Court] agree[d] with the court's conclusion that the petitioner failed to allege facts demonstrating either the objective or subjective components of a valid eighth amendment claim. [Its] review of the record indicates that much of the evidence that the petitioner presented merely showed that the respondent had knowledge of the facts surrounding her assault, but does not support the objective element of `serious harm.' The court, in its memorandum of decision, confirmed that fact. It stated that it was unable to make a conclusive finding concerning what transpired in the petitioner's cell on [the date the petitioner was assaulted in her cell].' Nonetheless, the court stated that it did not `discount the possibility that [the petitioner] was involved in a physical altercation with her cellmate which resulted in the minor injuries which she sustained on that date.' (Emphasis added.) With respect to the subjective element, however, the issue is not whether the respondent had knowledge of the attack. Rather, the evidence must show that the respondent had actual knowledge of a substantial risk of serious harm facing the petitioner and disregarded that risk by failing to take reasonable measures to abate that risk. See id., 837.
"Under Farmer, the respondent has no liability if he can show `that [he] did not know of the underlying facts indicating a sufficiently substantial danger and that [he was] therefore unaware of a danger, or that [he] knew the underlying facts but believed (albeit unsoundly) that the risk to which the facts gave rise was insubstantial or nonexistent.' Id., 844. In other words, `the [respondent] must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and [he] must also draw the inference.' Id., 837.
"In [ Fuller], the court properly concluded that the respondent was not deliberately indifferent because he did not actually draw the inference that the petitioner was exposed to a specific risk of serious harm. Other than the report of the . . . assault, the petitioner provided documentation regarding two previous complaints she had lodged with the respondent, but she never alleged in those complaints that she specifically had informed the respondent of a risk of violence against her from her cellmates or other inmates.
"Even if [the Appellate Court were to] assume that the petitioner could have proven that the respondent had actual knowledge of the risk, [it found] nothing in the record other than the respondent's reasonable responses to guarantee the petitioner's safety. For example, after the altercation between the petitioner and her cellmate, the respondent took immediate corrective steps and transferred the offending cellmate to another unit.
"The petitioner's claim that a housing classification system would have eliminated the risk of assault is unavailing. Nothing in the record suggests that the petitioner would benefit from such a system in light of the nature of the charges that underlie her incarceration. Moreover, the record discloses that the cellmate about whom she complained, although a repeat offender, was not a violent offender . . . The record, therefore, supports the court's conclusion that the conditions of the petitioner's confinement did not rise to the level of a deprivation of a basic human need. Without such evidence, the petitioner has failed to demonstrate that the respondent acted with deliberate indifference to her health and safety.
"[The Appellate Court] next examine the petitioner's implicit argument that the double celling of inmates in and of itself violates the eighth amendment. That argument is without merit.
"The United States Supreme Court explained in Rhodes v. Chapman, supra, 452 U.S. 347-50, that double celling inmates in units built to house only one inmate, by itself, does not result in any deprivation of basic human needs. The petitioner has only alleged that double celling made her incarceration uncomfortable, and she has not connected it to other conditions affecting a prisoner's quality of life, such as inadequate food, improper medical care or deprivation of exercise. Therefore, [the Appellate Court agreed] with the court that the deprivation was not `sufficiently serious' to demonstrate that the conditions fell beneath `the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities.' Id., 347. [The Appellate Court had] no doubt that sharing a cell with another inmate may sometimes be uncomfortable; however, as the Supreme Court has stated, `the [c]onstitution does not mandate comfortable prisons . . .' Id., 349. `To the extent that such conditions are restrictive and even harsh, they are part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses against society.' Id., 347. Therefore, [the Appellate Court] reject[ed] that portion of the petitioner's claim and conclude that she has not alleged sufficient facts to constitute an eighth amendment violation. The court, therefore, properly dismissed the petitioner's habeas petition." (Footnote omitted.) Fuller v. Commissioner of Correction, supra, 75 Conn.App. 136-40.
Based upon the foregoing, it is patently clear that the petitioner has neither alleged nor proven any harm or injury, let alone any serious harm or injury. The petitioner has in no way shown that the respondent has failed to take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of inmates. Furthermore, the petitioner has not demonstrated any deliberate indifference to an actual risk of which the respondent was aware. Lastly, there is no evidence whatsoever that the respondent's double celling is racist.
Judgment shall enter denying the petition for a writ of habeas corpus.