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Class Action Challenge to Solitary Confinement

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Class Action Challenge to Solitary Confinement Summer 2012 CCR Wins Class Certification in Case Challenging Stop-and-Frisk On May 16, CCR and our clients won an enormous victory when a federal judge granted class certification in our law- suit, Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al., challenging the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices as unconstitutional and racially discriminatory. This ruling allows anyone who has been unlawfully stopped and frisked since 2005 (hundreds of thousands of individuals) to join our lawsuit as a plaintiff. The individuals and communi- Aerial shot of Pelican Bay State Prison, a supermax facility. ties who have endured the brunt of these unconstitutional practices will finally get Class Action Challenge their day in court! The NYPD reported a record 685,724 stops to Solitary Confinement in 2011 alone—a 600 percent increase since Raymond Kelly took over as NYPD In the summer of 2011, hunger strikes protesting prolonged solitary commissioner in 2002. Of those stopped, confinement conditions and policies in the Security Housing Unit 84 percent were Black or Latino—despite (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison, in California, shone a bright light on representing only 52 percent of the city’s the miscarriage of human rights associated with the practice. Nearly total population. According to Columbia 12,000 prisoners from over a dozen California prisons participated in University law professor Jeffrey Fagan, the strikes, which garnered national and international media attention who has analyzed six years of NYPD data and support. The hunger strikes ended in October 2011 after prisoner continued on page 3 representatives were assured that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation was working on new regulations and would continue conversations about other improvements sought by the prisoners. On May 31, 2012, CCR filed a lawsuit on behalf of SHU prisoners at Pelican Bay challenging prolonged solitary confinement as a form of torture. The class action suit was filed in conjunction with several legal and advocacy organizations in California and plaintiffs include leaders and participants from the hunger strike. The lawsuit alleges that prolonged solitary confinement violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and that the absence of meaningful review for SHU placement violates the prisoners’ right to due process. Situated on the coast of California just south of Oregon, Pelican Bay State Prison is located in a remote area hundreds of miles from the nearest city. Prisoners in the SHU at Pelican Bay spend between 22 ½ and 24 hours each CCR staff Ibraham Qatabi and Nahal Zamani with day alone in cramped, windowless cells. They are not allowed phone calls, Ashwini Shrikant at the Father’s Day March to End food is often rotten and inedible, and medical care is frequently withheld. Stop-and-Frisk in NYC. continued on page 3 CCR Welcomes Sorry It Got Caught Purvi Shah “Terrorist,” “traitor” and “treason” are CCR is labels used, since 9/11, to justify the severe excited to repression of constitutionally protected announce activities, such as protest of U.S. government that Purvi policies. We are in an era of profound Shah, lawyer repression, scapegoating and secret trials not and law professor, seen in decades, which extend far beyond has joined Guantánamo to the targeting, detaining the Center as and silencing of political activists and the director of the Social Justice whistleblowers here at home. Institute (SJI). For over a decade, Photo by Lindsay Beyerstein Warren. Vincent Purvi has worked for economic As I write, Private First Class Bradley and racial justice at various civil Manning, perhaps the most important In order to expose these proceedings in rights organizations across the alleged whistleblower of this generation, the light of day, on May 23, 2012, CCR country. She has also been is being court-martialed at Fort Meade successfully filed a petition with the U.S. engaged in teaching, training, in Maryland. Manning, nominated for Army Court of Criminal Appeals, seeking and building the next generation the Nobel Peace Prize by members of public disclosure of secret filings and court of social justice attorneys, which made her the perfect the Icelandic Parliament, is charged with orders in the Manning proceedings. The candidate to head up the newly releasing thousands of documents exposing petition was brought on behalf of CCR created SJI. U.S. government secrets to WikiLeaks. The and joined by Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy government has also apparently issued a Scahill and The Nation, Amy Goodman Following law school in 2006, secret indictment against WikiLeaks founder and Democracy Now!, Manning biographer Purvi launched the Community and publisher Julian Assange for the public Chase Madar, Kevin Gostola and Justice Project (CJP) at Florida dissemination of those documents. The Firedoglake blog, and Julian Assange and Legal Services to provide legal, United States is embarrassed by the facts WikiLeaks. The petition asks this military policy, and training support that have come out, but not by the profound appellate court to order the judge in the to community organizations illegality of their conduct that has been Manning proceedings to, consistent with in Miami. At the CJP, Purvi created and directed the Social exposed. Much like an entitled child, the its obligations under the First Amendment, Justice Summer (SJS) Fellowship government is stomping its feet—sorry that make public the government filings and Program, a 10-week summer it got caught, but not for what it has done. court orders in the case and to cease private, institute that trains progressive in camera, deliberations with counsel where law students on the theory Indeed, the documents allegedly leaked rulings are made in secret. and practice of community by Manning and published by WikiLeaks lawyering. In addition to her role expose lies, human rights violations, As counsel for WikiLeaks and Julian at Florida Legal Services, Purvi abuse and other crimes committed by the Assange, CCR will continue to monitor was an adjunct professor as well U.S. and other countries. One of the most the Manning hearings—both because as co-director and co-founder devastating pieces leaked was a 39-minute Manning stands accused of providing of the Community Lawyering video entitled “Collateral Murder,” which evidence of U.S. war crimes to our clients Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law. shamefully depicts three brutal attacks on and because the proceedings are inextricably civilians by U.S. soldiers in just one day of linked to a grand jury in Virginia reported The SJI is made possible the Iraq war. The video belies the military’s to be issuing subpoenas for information on by support from the Bertha blatant mischaracterization of the events Assange and WikiLeaks. Foundation. The Bertha as engagement with a “hostile force,” as Foundation was honored at this the footage clearly shows attacks against CCR will continue to pry open the doors year’s President’s Reception for civilians, not militants. of our democracy and counter the grim their tremendous contributions prediction made by Federal Court of to CCR. It is abundantly clear that what WikiLeaks Appeals Judge Damon Keith, who famously We will be sharing more published should not have been classified wrote in Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft, details about the growing as secret information. To cover up this “Democracies die behind closed doors.” SJI throughout the coming problem, the government has opted to silence CCR remains committed to challenging months. You can find out more and vilify Manning, holding him in brutal the calcification of the culture of secrecy about Purvi at: www.ccrjustice. isolated detention, and then shrouding his within our government in the Manning org/about-us/staff-board/ entire trial in secrecy. Indeed, the proceedings case, and to countering the increasing shah%2C-purvi. against Manning are even more restrictive suppression of our First Amendment and opaque than those at Guantánamo. right to dissent. CCR 666 Broadway, 7th floor, New York, NY 10012 • Phone (212) 614-6489 • Fax (212) 614-6422 Email [email protected] • www.CCRjustice.org Follow @theCCR on Twitter and “Center for Constitutional Rights” on Facebook 2 SOLITARY CONFINEMENT STOP-AND-FRISK (continued from cover) (continued from cover) and will provide expert testimony in our Prisoners are let out only to shower case, even after adjustments are made in a locked stall or to exercise in for other factors—including crime rates what is referred to as the “dog pen,” a small cement yard with 15-foot and allocations of police resources— walls. race is the primary factor determining NYPD stops. Most stops occur in Black Despite the fact that the SHU was and Latino neighborhoods and, even in originally built to hold prisoners predominantly white neighborhoods, for no more than 18 months, some Blacks and Latinos are significantly prisoners have been held there more likely to be stopped. since it opened in 1989. California, alone among all 50 states, imposes In her decision to grant class certifica- extremely prolonged solitary tion, Judge Scheindlin wrote: “Sus- confinement if a prisoner is picionless stops should never occur. merely alleged to be associated Defendants’ cavalier attitude towards with a gang—rather than based the prospect of a ‘widespread practice on actual gang activity—and is of suspicionless stops’ displays a deeply often grounded on the flimsiest of troubling apathy towards New Yorkers’ evidence. A “dog pen” at Pelican Bay State Prison: most fundamental constitutional rights.” Gabriel Reyes, a plaintiff in our a small, enclosed cement “yard” where lawsuit, has been at Pelican Bay for prisoners can exercise. Apart from these stops being uncon- 18 years—16 of which he has spent stitutional and racially discriminatory, they also do little to keep New Yorkers in extreme isolation. Sentenced to 25 Our Constitution protects years in prison following a burglary safe.
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