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twitterInmates’ lawsuit could mean trouble for Corrections Department
Medical case could expose flaws in system
Thursday, April 16, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Sun Archives
- Prison director may resign if cuts exceed 14 percent (10-14-2008)
- Audit critical of prison corrections system (9-24-2008)
- ACLU sues Nevada officials over state prison's medial care (3-7-2008)
- Medical care for inmates is 'poor' (6-13-2006)
Inmates at Ely State Prison have won the right to pursue a class action lawsuit against the Nevada Corrections Department, and prison officials should be very worried.
Not just because the suit — which alleges medical care for Ely inmates is so bad it’s deadly — casts a bad light on corrections. And not because the inmates could win big settlements from the state — they aren’t even asking for money.
The real reason prison officials should be concerned about the class action lawsuit is this: The Ely case is about more than the Ely prison. This case is actually about a systemic failing of the entire Corrections Department. If the Ely suit succeeds, the first domino falls.
The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada in March of last year, argues that Ely inmates are grossly deprived of basic medical care. The key here, the reason the case has implications for the entire state prison system, is that the inmates’ medical problems are partly because necessary prescription medications not being distributed regularly, if at all.
Now take a step back: Nevada’s prison pharmacy is a centralized operation, run out of a hub in Las Vegas. If there are problems with prescriptions in Ely, the logic goes, there are problems everywhere. It’s not the prison, it’s the system.
Now take another step back: A 2006 state audit of prison medical services revealed “significant weaknesses” in pharmacy operations, including a central pharmacy that sometimes took more than four weeks to dispense medication. This audit lays a nice foundation for someone to argue issues at Ely are a small part of a larger, long-standing problem.
U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks, who certified the class action lawsuit on March 31, allowed the ACLU to represent not just the roughly 1,000 prisoners currently incarcerated at Ely, but any future inmates sent to the maximum security facility. Five inmates are named in the lawsuit, but the door is open for an unforeseeable number.
The state attorney general’s office represents the prison system and fought against the class action status. It had good reason to do so. If the ACLU was forced to represent each inmate separately, the cases could be bogged down with painstaking examination of individual medical treatment histories, burying the central but general issue: prison health care in Nevada.
Grouping inmates in one case, packing a complaint with numerous, horrifying stories of negligent care, forces the court to focus on the overarching issue. This is another reason state prison officials should be concerned about the Ely case: By granting class action status, the federal judge acknowledges this isn’t about a few guys griping, but, as he wrote in his ruling, about an “inadequate medical system.”
Moreover, a class action case allows the ACLU to circumvent laws designed to thwart inmate lawsuits. The federal Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, enacted to limit the number of frivolous lawsuits filed by jailhouse attorneys, made it harder for inmates to sue prisons. As a result, Nevada inmates have to complete a complicated formal grievance process before they can file a lawsuit against the state. The five men named in the Ely suit went through this process and were legally allowed to lawyer up. Now that the judge has certified the class action status, however, the ACLU is allowed to work backward, finding and representing inmates who didn’t jump through the necessary hoops — maybe because they were too sick to stand it.
And if new cases come to light, examples of inmates worse off than those named in the Ely suit, that’s something for all of us to worry about.
Discussion: 18 comments so far…
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The horrifying conditions in the prisons are going to cost billions to remedy and makes thug crooked criminals out of everyone in the state; you people are no better than the people in the prisons!
Let's see; Education, Health care, the Judicial System, we could go on all day enumerating the failures of Nevada Government. the "I AIN'T PAYIN' FOR IT" anti-tax nuts around these here parts are costing Nevada PLENTY! You folks just cannot see the forest for the trees. Refusing to properly fund in the first place costs you immeasurably down the road. Nevadan's have the lowest per-capita tax burden in the U.S.A., and it is painfully obvious to anyone with eyes to see just exactly what it is that buys you.
As for the prisons, Howard Skolnik is holding on to a bag of rattlesnakes. I'd drop it and run.
Send em all to Arizona and Sheriff Joe - what makes these criminals think they have any rights at all - that should be the FIRST thing to go - their so-called CIVIL RIGHTS - and then their FREEDOM - they should sit and rot - no tv - no computers and green baloney sandwiches (which they have to pay for). This country needs to stop coddling the criminal element. I thought prisons were supposed to be their PUNISHMENT - it's not supposed to be a paid vacation, free room and board and three 3 square meals a day -
Around the same time as the ACLU ruling, there was another ruling in the Patrick Cavanaugh case. Patrick Cavanaugh was an insulin dependent diabetic who was denied all treatment and died from gangrene and heart failure. He rotted to death.
The pharmacy is a problem, but I believe it is the smallest of the many problems. There is no physician at Ely State Prison. A nurse is making medical decisions, and sometimes the warden makes medical decisions. There is more suffering going on in that place than most people could imagine taking place in this country. Even when there is a diagnosis and treatment suggestions, the warden routinely overrides physician ordeers.
This is going to cost the state billions.
If the NDCO cannot hire competent medical staff, they need to close that prison. It has been nothing but a drain on the tax payers and an embarrassment to our values as a people ESP must go!
well, there you go, ask8fan, you got your guy right there rotted to death in prison. Happy?
When people invoke Sheriff Joe's example, they don't take into consideration the costs. Maricopa County has paid out millions in liability lawsuits filed by inmates -- 2,150 lawsuits over a three year period. NY, LA, and Chicago combined had only 43 lawsuits filed in the same period. Sheriff Joe's jails just lost their medical accreditation as well, which means defending against those lawsuits will be that much more difficult.
This isn't about coddling inmates. It's about following the law. Not providing proper medical care, as prescribed by the law, winds up being really expensive for the taxpayer... and then we have to provide it anyway.
azsk8fan -- PRESCRIPTION drugs is coddling? You've actually outdone your usual stupidity.
Little Missy -- your dire prediction is one Corrections had better listen to.
Auslander -- good call.
make marijuana legal and get rid of a large number of inmates. Tax rhe hell out it and pay for some needed changes in the prisons.
Legalize marijuana when they have a field sobriety test.
I am all for inmates getting the meds they require but with the way the Gibbon is running this state brace yourself for more problems.
azsk8fan -- PRESCRIPTION drugs is coddling? You've actually outdone your usual stupidity.
Little Missy -- your dire prediction is one Corrections had better listen to.
Auslander -- good call.
DITTO.
Torture, ignorance and spite have no place in bringing out the best in human beings. Our prisoners have more medical and mental health problems than most of us.
Prison officials who are denying medical and mental health care to those in these ridiculous concrete cages cannot and will not continue this revolting torture. If this is not cold blooded to the max, I don't know what is.
Legislators and the prison board members who do not speak out to stop this massacre TODAY at Ely are guilty of crimes against humanity, in my opinion.
I think that Judge Hicks has properly set the stage to clean up this longtime problem that is to me, the active genocide of Nevada's prisoners.
First off, I'd like to thank Abigail Goldman for an enlightening article. It was well done and without the usual spin-opinion of the department of corrections--which in my opinion, is a foul and disturbing blight on all Americans.
We are speaking of not just medical, dental and administration segregation violations, but the implications leading back to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Russia's Gulags, China, Iran and the list goes on--of civil & human rights abuses.
The secret society of prisons in Nevada is disgraceful, and warrants an in-depth audit & investigation of the director of prisons, Howard Skolnik and the warden of Ely state prison, E.K. McDaniels. These men need to go and quickly! They are disgraceful to the human race for abuses they allow to continue, or instigate...
The Nevada Prison Commissioners, Governor Gibbons, Secretary of State Ross Miller and Attorney General Katherine Cortez Masto, are cowards, or powerless, to reign in these criminals. Commissioners need to start taking a hand on these abuses and have them stopped. They do nothing. Does that mean they condone the continuing "rotting to death of prisoners?"
As doctors have stated in reports to the courts. Nevada should be thankful Judge Hicks acted responsibility on the inmates court filings. It was long overdue.
My question is this: "If the prison commissioners refuse to take their responsibility seriously and men & women continue to die in prison--needlessly--why are they playacting"? They should remove themselves from office or face international criminal violations of civil & human rights. It is only the rightful thing to do. Act now, or get out, and take your cowardice with you!
Murder by neglect or refusing medications is foul.
I believe these animals earn there way into the concrete boxes with THEIR crimes against humanity. The prisoners should have basic medical care, the same basic medical care that all of the other poor people have in Nevada. They should have the same basic mental health care as all of the other unemployed people in Nevada are able to obtain. Prisoners should not get a free meal ticket, access to computers, and tv. They are supposed to be paying for their hideous crimes, not coddled like Kings and Queens. It is very hard to have sympathy for criminals.
Um, last I checked we live in a country that has civil rights. It keeps each of us innocent until proven guilty. Just ask the thousands of inmates let out after DNA evidence proved they didn't/couldn't have done the crime they were imprisoned for.
Check countries that have rehabilitation programs instead of locked cages and check the overall crime rate, the level of education of its citizens and the rate of repeat offenders. I think you'll find that we pretty much have it all wrong. If you keep treating prisoners like animals, it is proven they will resort to animal behavior, especially when they are released back into society.
bodieb has it 100% correct. Well stated.
Auslander is also rational and correct, also Spartacus.
Nevada prisons are not even accredited to professional standards of operations and policy nor for health care. This article is dead on correct. And NV government officials are 100% responsible.
This is an emergency if there ever was one.
Food is being reduced. The ACLU attorney on the NV Advisory Committee for the Administration of Justice warned of a new lawsuit about food inadequacy at a recent meeting. The minutes are on the internet. You can read all about it.
Clothing is inadequate. Higher education is gone.
But, the medical cases are worst of all a shame on Nevada.
The new websites Nevada Prisoner Voice, Nevada Prison Watch and Make the Walls Transparent are websites that are illuminating on this subject.
Win/win situations are healthy. Punish prisoners, deny them medical treatment so they starve and die here in NV is outrageous and must be stopped, with the prison officials punished for crimes against humanity, we agree with Spartacus.
Now is the time for positive time. Tomorrow may be too late.
Starrynite:
I usually don't comment on anyone's private thoughts, but in your case--I will. Your self loathing is disgusting for other to have to read, and believe an intelligent person is writing this nonsense. Are you a disillusioned cop or wannabe?
No one person can be that ignorant.
Where do you get your information? On TV? Out of a garbage can? Where? Who ever told you prisoners have computers? TV's cost a prisoner $300 for a 9" screen. Most items out of a commissary are marked up 300% profit for the state. That is theft. Aren't you proud?
You must be from the church of self-righteousness
to think of denying a sick person medical help, or mental health. You have a sick self indulgent mind, and that can't be fixed. You will remain ignorant for the rest of your life--happily.
I have read your filth in the past. You just can't get over your hatred of all things relating to disgusting prison life and conditions. Why is that? Do you even know?
Do most readers a favor and go back to your putrid hole in the ground. Maybe your relatives can stand you. You are truly disgusting!
If, you ever find the time to rejoin the human race again--bring with you a better life. You are one miserable rodent.
Why have complaints not been filed against the state board of nursing, state board of physicians and anyone with a license to practice law that is involved in this atrocity. There are more deaths out there that should be added to the list. If you look at the number of deaths that occurred at the Carson City Prison Hospital, and local hospitals that critical inmates are sent, you would be horrified, strange so many of them are noted as natural at such young ages. Why do inmates in other states get treatment for hepatitis C and not in Nevada?