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Inmate wins round in suit over extended stay in Pa. prison dry cell

From Pennlive

WILLIAMSPORT – It is a common practice for inmates to be placed in dry cells when prison officials suspect they have ingested contraband.

That happened to Briaheen Thomas at the State Correctional Institution at Rockview on May 31, 2015, after he was observed being handed a bag of peanut M&Ms by a friend in the visiting room, eating something and quickly taking a drink of soft drink.

He was immediately handcuffed and placed in a dry cell in the prison’s infirmary.

In dry cells, which are used to closely observe an inmate until natural processes allow for ingested material to be retrieved, all standing water is drained from the toilet and the water supply cut off.

Dry cells lack linens and movable items other than a mattress. The inmate is stripped of clothing and provided a simple smock to wear.

Thomas was offered and accepted the use of laxatives to speed his release from the cell.

Over four days he had 12 bowel movements none of which produced any evidence of contraband. An X-ray also revealed no contraband in his body.

But instead of being released, the prison Program Review Committee decided to keep Thomas in the dry cell for five more days, releasing him on June 9, 2015.

After exhausting administrative remedies he filed suit in U.S. Middle District Court alleging his right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment had been violated.

His suit noted one wrist was handcuffed to the bed frame and he was not provided water to wash his hands, toilet paper, sanitary wipes, toothbrush or a blanket although he complained of being cold.

Magistrate Judge Joseph F. Saporito found sufficient disputed facts for the case to proceed, but Judge Matthew W. Brann in March 2018 rejected that recommendation and granted summary judgment to the three defendants who were members of the Program Review Committee.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled Brann erred and remanded the case to him on the issue that whether keeping Thomas in the dry cell the extra days violated his constitutional rights.

The panel’s majority affirmed Brann in that placement in a dry cell serves a penological interest and is not inhuman. However, they found there was no penological justification to keep Thomas there beyond four days.

Judge Joseph Greenaway Jr. agreed with the extended stay decision but favored also remanding the claim related to conditions in the cell.

Greenaway concluded the conditions in Thomas’ dry cell were “deplorable to say the very least” and that he was deprived of “the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities.”

He cited Thomas having to wear the same paper-thin smock that did not fit him all nine days, sleep in constant illumination on a soiled mattress with no cover, sheet or pillow and being handcuffed in a painful position.

Most egregiously, Greenaway wrote, Thomas was denied any means of cleaning himself, including after bowel movements and before meals.

Thomas was serving a sentence from Philadelphia in 2015. He no longer is an inmate.

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