Around a hundred people – family members, activists,
lawyers, reporters, and even a group of high school history students – gathered
yesterday outside the Oakland Courthouse to advocate an end to long-term
solitary confinement in California.
The rally and press conference was organized by Prisoner Hunger
Strike Solidarity, a coalition that provided support to California prisoners
engaged in a recent 60 day long hunger strike. With around 30,000 initial participants, the hunger strike
centered around 5
core demands to end to the inhumane and unjust conditions of California’s
Security Housing Unit (SHU) system.
The focal point of the prisoner hunger strike, Pelican Bay
SHU, is also the subject of the lawsuit considered yesterday in Oakland. In Ashker
v. Brown, a group of prisoners is suing
CDCR and Governor Brown to secure an injunction against indeterminate SHU
sentencing based on gang validation.
The case, presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken, is
being litigated by Legal
Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC), the Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR), and other co-counsel from around the country.
Yesterday, Judge Wilken heard oral arguments on a motion to
certify a class of plaintiffs in Ashker who
would assert due process violations based on gang validation, as well as cruel
and unusual punishment of those prisoners who have been in isolation for more
than ten years. Granting the
motion, under Federal
Rule 23, would mean these claims would be brought on behalf of a large
group of prisoners who have each suffered solitary confinement, rather than on
behalf of individual plaintiffs. Among
other things, Rule 23 requires that there are grievances common to all class
members and that the claims of the named plaintiffs are typical of others in
the group.
In yesterday’s oral arguments (see the motion for class
certification here),
Judge Wilken’s questions focused first on how the commonality of the class is
affected by CDCR’s new gang validation pilot program. Specifically, since the commencement of the Ashker case, CDCR has created a Security
Threat Group (STG) pilot program that it claims resolves the due process
violations of the prior validation system.
Judge Wilken expressed concern that those prisoners sentenced
to indeterminate SHU terms under the old validation system would constitute a
different class from those validated under the STG pilot program. However, as CCR Attorney Alexi
Agathocleous – who argued today on behalf of the plaintiffs – pointed out, CDCR
has yet to provide any evidence that the pilot program addresses any of the due
process issues raised in the complaint, such as being able to use the
possession of artwork to sentence prisoners to indefinite isolation.
In addition to the due process claim, the lawsuit asserts
that the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is violated when gang-validated
prisoners are kept in solitary for more than a decade. Though the Ashker case defines these prisoners as part of a “subclass,” Judge
Wilken questioned whether there were potentially prisoners who had been
detained in the SHU for more than ten years who were serving determinate sentences.
It is worth distinguishing here that those sentenced to SHU
terms can either serve set, determinate sentences for behavioral violations
under Title 15 or be assigned indeterminate sentences on the basis of suspected
gang association. Plaintiffs
yesterday pointed out that it is unlikely that there is a
separate class of prisoners who have been in SHU for more than ten years
because, under
Title 15, even the most severe rule violation – murder of a non-inmate – is
punishable by a maximum of five years in SHU. (As an aside, the UN has stated
that solitary confinement in excess of 15 days amounts to torture.)
To follow the litigation of Ashker v. Brown – including Judge Wilken’s ruling on the motion to
certify the class - and the Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement, visit LSPC, PHSS, or CCR.
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