In 2001 Richard Lee Pollard was an inmate working at the Taft Correctional Institution in Bakersfield California. The Taft facility was run by the GEO Group, which used another name, but was contracted to run the Taft prison until 2007, according to McClatchy Newspapers. Pollard job was in the butcher shop, and he had an accident that resulted in “possible” fractures of both elbows. Pollard was handcuffed in what he claims was an uncomfortable position, considering his injuries, and was taken to a clinic in Bakersfield. In court papers obtained by McClatchy Newspapers, Pollard claims his arms were left without splints for two weeks, causing permanent damage. In his declaration to the court, Pollard stated that his injuries will prohibit him from working in auto body shops as a mechanic. Pollard filed a lawsuit, but it was dismissed by the Ninth Circuit Court in 2007 after it ruled that there was no way to distinguish Taft from a from a government-run prison.
In most cases inmates cannot sue federal employees, but McClatchy News reports that the Supreme Court ruled some cases can be brought before the court if it is found that an inmate’s constitutional rights have been violated by a federal employee. This ruling came after a New York inmate, Webster Bivens, sued when he was manhandled by police during an illegal narcotics search. Pollard used the Bivens ruling in his lawsuit.
McClatchy Newspapers reported that the Court ruled “If those employees demonstrated deliberate indifference to Pollard's serious medical needs, the resulting deprivation was caused ... by the federal government's exercise of its power to punish Pollard by incarceration." This ruling does not sit well with Pollard’s lawyer. John Pries, a law professor at the University of Richmond, has agreed to represent Pollard for free. Today Pries will argue before the court, “...that inmates held in privately run prisons enjoy the same constitutional right to sue employees over cruel and unusual punishment as do inmates in facilities run directly by the government,” McClatchy Newspapers announced. The justices’ ruling is eagerly awaited by private prison corporations, and by inmates and those who advocate for legal rights for prisoners. Reentry Centralwill post an update when the court’s decision is made known.
Source: McClatchy Newspapers
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