Filed Date: April 23, 1990
Case Ongoing
Clearinghouse coding complete
COVID-19 Summary: This is a class action for California prisoners with mental illness. After a three-judge court denied a motion for a prisoner release order as premature, plaintiffs sought relief before a single district judge. Relief has been achieved to an extent. The defendants have continued to comply with the broader injunction while staying mindful of the public health demands of the pandemic. In particular, the parties have been able to reach agreements concerning quarantine and isolation space specifically for people in the enhanced outpatient and psychiatric inpatient programs. However, most of the COVID-related relief has occurred in Plata v. Newsom.
NOTE: All the documents in this case relating to the prison overcrowding proceedings, which led to imposition of a statewide prison population cap, affirmed by the Supreme Court, are presented in a related case record.
On April 23, 1990, incarcerated persons with mental illnesses in California state prisons filed this class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. The plaintiffs sued California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and alleged that mental health care provided at most California penal institutions violated their constitutional rights. They also filed a claim under the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, but that claim was eventually dismissed. The plaintiffs, represented by the Prison Law Office, Legal Aid, the Disability Rights and Education Defense Fund, and private counsel, sought declaratory and injunctive relief.
The matter was referred to Magistrate Judge John F. Moulds. On October 24, 1991, the court (Judge Lawrence K. Karlton) certified a class of “all inmates with serious mental disorders who are now or who will in the future be confined within the California Department of Corrections (except the San Quentin State Prison, the Northern Reception Center at Vacaville and California Medical Facility-Main at Vacaville).” The defendants objected to the inclusion of Pelican Bay State Prison because of a concurrent action, Madrid v. Gomez, but the court ultimately maintained the class definition to include Pelican Bay.
The plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction seeking a heat treatment plan for individuals who were on psychotropic medications and at risk of extreme heat exposure. Magistrate Judge Moulds initially recommended denying the plaintiffs’ motion on the basis that the defendants was taking reasonable steps to address these concerns, a recommendation that Judge Karlton adopted on November 14, 1991. However, the court eventually preliminarily enjoined CDCR on May 11, 1992. While the document is not available to the Clearinghouse, it appears that the preliminary injunction was granted because the defendants’ efforts proved inadequate. On May 25, 1993, the court also granted the plaintiffs’ motion to modify the preliminary injunction, though the document is not publicly available, so it is not clear what the details of the modification are.
Following significant and contentious discovery, the case underwent a 36-day trial across three months from March to May 1993. The Magistrate Judge Moulds issued a report and recommendation on June 6, 1994, making fifteen different recommendations that would have led to significantly more robust and systematized mental health care in California correctional institutions. On September 13, 1995, Judge Karlton adopted the report and recommendation in full, finding a broad set of constitutional violations and endorsing a wide range of remedies. Specifically, the court found that the defendants had been deliberately indifferent to a serious risk of substantial harm stemming from systemic deficiencies in mental health care, including inadequate screenings, understaffing, delays in access to care, deficiencies in medication management and involuntary medication, inadequacy of medical records, inadequately trained staff, improper housing of mentally ill inmates in administrative segregation, and egregious use of tasers and 37mm guns on persons with serious mental disorders. The court ordered that new policies and protocols be developed, and ordered that a special master be appointed to monitor compliance with the court-ordered injunctive relief. 912 F.Supp. 1282. On December 11, 1995, the court appointed J. Michael Keating, Jr., to serve as special master, setting out his duties, powers and compensation.
The special master began work and hired staff but ceased his work pending further court direction after passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). On July 12, 1996, the court held that an already-appointed special master’s compensation was not subject to the limitations contained within the PLRA and that the payments would be made by the defendants rather than the court. 933 F.Supp. 954. The defendants appealed this and two other rulings about the retroactivity of the PLRA on special master compensation by seeking writs of mandamus. On December 24, 1996, the Ninth Circuit rejected these petitions, holding that the district court did not commit clear, unappealable error, 103 F.3d 828, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari on May 19, 1997. Wilson v. District Court, 520 U.S. 1230 (1997).
The defendants similarly appealed the court’s adoption of the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation regarding systemic deficiencies within the mental health care system. However, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on November 14, 1996, because any injunctive relief stemming from the post-trial order did not yet exist and was “to be implemented by subsequent order of the court,” meaning that the defendants’ appeal was premature. 1996 WL 665551.
Litigation over attorneys’ fees persisted, and the court allowed the United States to intervene in the case on March 19, 1997, to file a memorandum of law regarding the constitutionality of the relevant PLRA provisions. Payments continued following the intervention.
On June 6, 1997, after reviewing the remedial plans submitted by the defendants, the special master made a number of recommendations to modify them. On June 27, 1997, Judge Karlton approved those recommendations, and approved the defendants’ remedial plans as modified, directing the special master to monitor their implementation of the plans.
Between 1998 and 2006, the court received numerous compliance reports from the special master and issued a number of orders regarding adherence to and implementation of remedial measures, including orders related to hiring, training, suicide prevention, inpatient beds, transfers persons to facilities that could provide adequate care, and other measures. For some of these, the plaintiffs raised concerns and objections.
For example, on August 26, 2005, the plaintiffs filed a notice of noncompliance, alleging that the defendants had not taken adequate steps toward suicide prevention. After extensive negotiations, the claim was voluntarily dismissed after the defendants agreed, on February 13, 2006, to ensure that prevention kits were adequately inventoried and that returning staff were properly trained to administer CPR.
On May 2, 2006, the court similarly incorporated the plaintiffs’ objections, here regarding the the defendants’ plan for inpatient bed provisions. Specifically, the plaintiffs raised concerns that the provisions of beds were based on outdated population projections that would cause the proposal to remain inadequate. As such, the court ordered that the defendants revise their plan to account for updated population projections and to find more spaces for inpatient and outpatient beds.
On February 3, 2006, the defendants filed their remedial plan, dubbed the Revised Program Guide, which the court approved one month later. The plaintiffs’ objections to some provisions were set for status conference and subsequent discovery. A May 16th status conference statement by the plaintiffs indicated that the two sides had made considerable progress toward resolving many of the concerns raised, including many disputes governing best practices for suicide prevention as well the quality and quantity of psychiatric staffing.
On June 8, 2006, the court ordered the defendants to develop a suicide prevention plan in response to the increasing number of suicides occuring in administrative segregation units. After deliberation between the parties, the special master on December 18, 2006, endorsed a revised version of the defendants’ plan that included creating more robust supervision of newly-admitted persons into administrative segregation as well as implementing more routine “welfare checks” of each cell.
On October 4, 2006, California Governor Schwarzenegger issued the Prison Overcrowding State of Emergency Proclamation. Under the PLRA, a population cap on a prison or a prison system may be entered only by a specially constituted three-judge district court. The inmates accordingly filed a motion to convene a three-judge district court to impose a prison population cap. A similar motion was filed in the related class action case Plata v. Schwarzenegger, in which CDCR's health care system was subject to court oversight and remediation, and also in Armstrong v. Schwarzenneger, a large-scale prisoner disability discrimination case. These motions and the resulting proceedings are described in a separate, three-judge Clearinghouse entry with many of the crucial documents.
While litigation regarding prison overcrowding ensued, the special master continued remediation work. His reports and corresponding court orders addressed issues which included: annual projections for mental health program populations, creation of a data collection system to track inmate referrals to various mental health services and administrative segregation, improvements in the pay scales of state mental health care workers, assessment and treatment of inmates with exhibitionist or paraphilia behaviors, implementation of an enhanced outpatient program at reception centers, and creation of additional mental health beds.
On October 9, 2007, Judge Karlton appointed Matthew A. Lopes, Jr., previously a deputy special master, to become the special master for this case.
On November 13, 2007, the plaintiffs filed a notice of noncompliance and raised issues with CDCR’s revision to its administrative segregation suicide prevention plan. Specifically, CDCR decreased the number of small management yards–spaces for out-of-cell time–it intended to construct, which was contrary to the special master’s report and recommendation. The court on January 16, 2008, permitted CDCR to construct only the reduced amount of small management yards, but ordered CDCR to do so on a faster timeline than it had intended.
On August 8, 2008, the court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for injunctive relief. The court required the defendants to evaluate pre-revocation parolees by the same standard as contemporaneously incarcerated persons in determining whether to admit them to inpatient psychiatric treatment. The court emphasized that the priority was ensuring timely care for individuals who may pose a threat to themselves or others.
Remedial work (in particular building) was somewhat stalled while the overcrowding three-judge-proceedings moved to bench trial. The three-judge court ordered a reduction in prison population, which the Supreme Court affirmed, and this case continued. For the next three years, remedial efforts were ordered on an ongoing basis–sometimes with respect to specific institutions–pertaining to bed and treatment space, recordkeeping, admissions procedure, facility construction, and referral to higher levels of care.
On April 14, 2010, the court, for seemingly the first time, declined to adopt a report and recommendation made by the special master. Because of persistent concerns regarding suicides among the prison population, the special master requested that the court order the defendants to take a set of concrete steps to prevent suicides. While CDCR in their brief did not fully articulate the provision under the PLRA upon which their objection was based, the court’s order that the special master confer with CDCR to develop a more robust suicide prevention plan signalled strong deference to prison administrators in line with the requirements found in the PLRA subsection (a)(1)(A).
Afterwards, the special master and CDCR re-examined and revised the latter’s current suicide prevention policies. The defendants determined and reported on August 25, 2010, that it could change the conditions of administrative segregation units; improve its identifying, tracking, and treating of individuals at a high risk of suicidal behavior; and better train staff to competently assess individuals’ circumstances. The special master endorsed these conclusions on September 27 while recommending that CDCR follow some particular procedures and further recommended that CDCR provide suicide-resistant beds in their crisis units. Save for the last recommendation regarding suicide-resistant beds, which was tabled for later, the court adopted in full the special master’s report on November 18, 2010. The court then adopted that final recommendation on July 21, 2011.
In January of 2013, the state moved to terminate the injunction on the grounds that it was no longer necessary to correct the ongoing violation of a constitutional right. Under the PLRA, the court was required to rule on that motion within three months or the challenged injunction would be stayed pending resolution of the motion. On April 5, 2013, Judge Karlton rejected the termination motion holding that the state's evidence was tainted by ethical violations committed to obtain it. Furthermore, he found that the state had failed to demonstrate that court-ordered relief was no longer necessary as there were ongoing Eighth Amendment violations regarding assessment, treatment, and intervention as well as deficiencies in access to care and treatment space. 938 F.Supp.2d 955.
The following week, on April 11, 2013, the plaintiffs filed a motion to enforce the existing judgment and to obtain additional relief relating to inpatient care. On May 6, 2013, they filed a similar motion relating to administrative segregation, and on May 29, 2013, they filed another motion relating to use of force and disciplinary measures.
Judge Karlton granted the inpatient care motion in part on July 11, 2013, finding that there was evidentiary support for the proposition that inpatient mental health care was inadequate across the state. After a four-day trial, the court granted the special master explicit authority to report on the adequacy of staffing and whether delays in care existed at Salinas Valley Psychiatric Program, to monitor the provision of inpatient mental health care statewide, and to conduct a first round of monitoring of all inpatient programs. Following the special master’s report, which was filed on September 24, 2013, the court ordered the defendants on December 10 to work under the guidance of the special master to assess unmet inpatient care needs and to develop durable solutions addressing that problem.
On April 10, 2014, the court granted-in-part both the use of force and administrative segregation motions following a 28-day trial. Judge Karlton found constitutional violations regarding both immediate and controlled use of force. The court found broadly that CDCR lacked proper policies, training, and enforcement for both protocols; additionally the court concluded that force was often used, and discipline given, without consideration for a person’s mental capacity or ability to comply with instructions. Further, the court found that placement of, duration of stay for, and quality of care provided to mentally ill individuals in administrative segregation units created a substantial risk of serious psychological harm. As such, the court ordered that CDCR work under the guidance of the special master to revise use of force guidelines and to file a plan that substantially reduced, or altogether eliminated, the placement of mentally ill persons in administrative segregation–whether for disciplinary or non-disciplinary reasons. 28 F.Supp.3d 1068.
On August 1, 2014, CDCR filed its report that complied with the court’s April 10 order. In it, CDCR detailed its revised use of force policy, its intent to limit the use of administrative segregation placement for non-disciplinary reasons, and its updated strip search policy, among other changes. Finding that these efforts met the April 10 requirements, the court approved CDCR’s implementation of its plans and policies on August 11, subject to monitoring by the special master.
Additionally, CDCR submitted a supplementary report on August 29. In that document, CDCR described its intent to create “specialty housing units” as an alternative to administrative segregation units for mentally ill persons who were removed from the general prison population for disciplinary reasons. In order to accomplish this, the defendants also requested that the court discharge its October 10, 2002, order that prohibited the placement of mentally ill individuals in standalone administrative segregation facilities because CDCR intended to convert some of these spaces into the alternate specialty housing units. The supplemental plan also included policy changes, including a prohibition that prevented discharging any person from inpatient medical care directly into administrative segregation. The court approved of this plan on the same day it was filed.
Because Judge Karlton retired from the federal bench, also on August 29, this case was reassigned to Judge Kimberly J. Mueller for all further proceedings.
After convening a work group of experts and prison staff on suicide management and prevention pursuant to a 2013 court order, the special master’s expert conducted an audit of all 34 CDCR institutions and reported findings on January 14, 2015. The report found that although the CDCR improved its suicide prevention practices, it had not implemented a standardized program for the identification, treatment, and supervision of inmates at risk for suicide. It additionally detailed thirteen different categories of improvements that CDCR could make. On February 3, the court ordered that the defendants adopt the recommendations included in the report. Annual audits of the suicide prevention practices continued with steady progress.
On March 2, 2015, the district court approved a final class settlement agreement in a related case, Hecker v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, that had been stayed pending remedial efforts in Coleman. During the stay, the partners in Hecker engaged in negotiations that resulted in the approved agreement. CDCR agreed to implement revised policies to ensure that prisoners with psychiatric disabilities would not be unlawfully excluded from prison programs and services or be discriminated against because of their disabilities. The settlement agreement also provided that the implementation of these revised policies would be monitored by the special master.
In the next two years, the court adopted additional reports and recommendations made by the special master. These reports concerned issues such as rules violation reports, suicide prevention, staffing, and the standardization of patient risk levels across the state system.
Following years of recurring and re-emerging long waitlists for inpatient care in violation of the Revised Program Guide's timelines, the court finally ordered on April 19, 2017, that the defendants come into permanent compliance with the Guide's timelines. Under threat of civil contempt fines, the court ordered the defendants to take this action by May 15 of the same year. In doing so, the court rejected the defendants’ argument that it did not need to achieve full compliance to not be deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of serious harm. The court further ordered the defendants to brief why it was unable to comply with requirements to transfer patients to crisis beds within the required twenty-four hours. 2017 WL 1398828. On October 10, the court clarified what was required of the defendants in complying with the Program Guide requiring them to transfer patients to crisis beds within twenty-four hours.
The defendants appealed both of these orders to the Ninth Circuit. In a pair of decisions on November 28, 2018, the court resolved these issues in favor of the plaintiffs. First, the court found that the April 19 order on its own did not constitute a final order or modify injunctive relief as much as it did reiterate existing injunctive relief; as such, the court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. 743 Fed.Appx. 875. Second, the court responded also to the April 19 order in combination with the October 10 order and affirmed the district court. 756 Fed.Appx. 677.
On October 10, 2017, the court issued another order, which concerned staffing. Noting that the defendants, for a fifteen year period, have been in violation of orders concerning adequate staffing levels, the court placed greater urgency on the issue and ordered that the defendants come into compliance within one year. 2017 WL 4511064. To achieve proper staffing levels, the defendants sought, among other measures, to use telepsychiatrists; however, the court on July 3, 2018, rejected overreliance on telepsychiatry, particularly for persons at higher risk levels like enhanced outpatient and crisis bed. The defendants appealed this order to the Ninth Circuit as well, but the appellate court dismissed the appeal on December 24, 2019, because it lacked jurisdiction. Specifically, the Ninth Circuit held that the July 3 order did not have the “practical effect” of granting injunctive relief for two reasons. First, this order merely reiterated what was contained in the October 10 order regarding staffing, which the defendants did not appeal. Second, any instructions given by the court were directed at the special master, not the defendants. 789 Fed.Appx. 38. Following extensive conferencing and negotiations, the parties reached a court-approved stipulation on March 27, 2020, governing the circumstances of telepsychiatry use.
In response to nine years’ worth of changes to remedial orders governing the defendants’ conduct, the special master submitted a new Revised Program Guide in 2018. The court approved the revisions on July 3, 2019.
On October 4, 2018, the defendants notified the plaintiffs that the former’s chief psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Golding, had written a detailed, 161-page report (Golding Report) that described shortcomings within the prison mental health care system as well as concerning allegations of fraud as a means of complying with court orders. Specifically, Dr. Golding alleged that compliance data provided to the court was inaccurate and presented in a materially misleading way. The court appointed Charles J. Stevens of Gibson Dunn to serve as a neutral expert and review the Golding Report.
On May 3, 2019, the neutral expert filed his report with the court. While there were no findings of fraudulent or misleading representation per se, the expert did find that many policies exhibited serious flaws that undermined remedial goals. As such, when the court accepted the neutral expert report on June 14, it noted that the special master could recommend that those policies may be clarified. Additionally, the court scheduled further evidentiary hearings to ascertain whether misleading data was in fact submitted to the court.
On December 17, 2019, the court issued an order discussing data certification, misleading information, and staffing. Specifically, the court emphasized the importance of proper data certification in light of the Golding Report. Skeptical of the defendants’ representations of facts and figures, especially because the court did not view them as taking full responsibility for any unintentionally misleading information, the court expressed a desire for verification mechanisms. Additionally, the court again noticed that staffing vacancies persisted above what was acceptable, and again Judge Mueller ordered the defendants to implement their staffing plan in good faith. Judge Mueller further noted that if, after attempting those changes, the desired change did not occur, then the defendants could, as they always were allowed to, move for modification of the injunction. 424 F.Supp.3d 925.
Over the next few months and through the pandemic, the court issued orders setting prerequisites for the transfer of data management; clarifying directives for medication adherence; maintenance and storage of grievances; and developing a quality improvement and assurance tool. Status reports were also continuously filed for the ongoing waitlist, staffing, bed space, and transfer issues.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, litigation about its impact occurred first in front of the three-judge panel, where the plaintiffs’ emergency motion asking the court to take more drastic steps toward population reduction was rejected. There, the court reasoned that a population reduction order over and above what was ordered in 2009 would constitute new relief, not a modification of the existing injunction. However, the three-judge panel emphasized that its decision did not foreclose pursuing “less intrusive relief” first in the appropriate, individual cases of Coleman and Plata. 455 F.Supp.3d 926.
Following this decision by the three-judge panel, Judge Mueller, who sat on the panel, ordered expedited briefing in this case concerning whether steps should be taken to allow for social distancing to protect constitutional rights, what those steps should be, and if the defendants were taking any steps presently. The plaintiffs argued that COVID exposure constituted a substantial risk of serious harm, but the defendants maintained that, in light of their wide-ranging response plan, any risks did not arise out of deliberate indifference.
In response to an April 10 order requiring that they produce a written plan, the defendants detailed all of the steps that were currently being taken to mitigate the effects of COVID. Specifically, CDCR described that it had virtually stopped all intake from county jails; released thousands of persons from facilities; suspended intake of the vast majority of people for inpatient care; increased sanitation efforts within facilities; and issued guidance regarding best known practices.
On April 24, the court temporarily modified the Revised Program Guide’s requirements and permitted COVID screening to be part of the intake process. In doing so, the court highlighted that any modifications that the defendants sought would be subject to court approval, where they bore the burden of proof that such a modification of injunctive relief was necessary. The defendants appealed the court’s clarifying May 7 order to the Ninth Circuit, but they voluntarily dismissed the appeal on October 9.
The parties additionally filed a set of stipulations describing how, if at all, CDCR could enact the Revised Program Guide in light of public health challenges and whether the defendants could modify requirements in response to the pandemic without creating Eighth Amendment violations. Finding these stipulations vague and unsatisfying with respect to many measures, the court instead ordered on July 28, 2020, that the defendants should expect to fully comply with the Revised Program Guide “while also complying with the best public health practices applicable to those persons in the Coleman class under the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.” The court reasoned that “[d]epartures below the requirements of the Program Guide . . . likely fall below constitutional minima.” The court also ordered that the defendants relay information about whether any Coleman class members would be affected and displaced by the Plata court’s order to set aside quarantine and isolation bed space.
As litigation continued on the extent to which the defendants were required to address the pandemic, the special master convened a task force consisting of some of the defendants’ representatives as well as the special master’s experts. The first such update by that task force was filed on July 15, 2020. The update described the dramatic uptick in cases within the prison system–from approximately 33 incarcerated persons as of April 9 to over 6,000 (with over 2,000 active) cases by mid-July. By the third joint update of the task force on August 12, the case count rose by about 1,500 cases as compared to the first update.
On August 3, the court ordered that the Program Guide be revised on an annual basis with input from both parties and the special master. In adopting this more institutionalized approach to defining remedies and obligations, the court required that the defendants make available to the plaintiffs “any proposed new or substantive amendments” ahead of the public comment period. The defendants appealed this order to the Ninth Circuit (docket no. 20-16734), but the appeal was dismissed as moot on October 5, 2022.
On August 18, 2020, the parties filed a joint report in response to the court’s July 28 order that laid out their plan for where mental health care might depart from the Revised Program Guide and how the parties intended to resume full compliance with the Guide’s requirements. These reports, per the court’s July 28 order, continued on a monthly basis.
On November 4, 2020, the court ordered that defendants could make minor modifications to their staffing plan. While stressing that the defendants had not yet complied with the requirements of the court’s October 10, 2017, order regarding staffing, the court noted that the Golding Report and COVID pandemic both justified not yet enforcing the order.
The special master filed the fourth re-audit of CDCR’s suicide prevention policies on September 23. On December 3, the court fully adopted his report, finding that CDCR was in substantial compliance as to some provisions but non-compliant as to many other recommendations. Because the court had previously strived for full compliance by the fifth re-audit, the defendants were ordered to offer name or names of individuals most knowledgeable who could ensure complete implementation of the suicide prevention recommendations.
In conjunction with the Plata court’s order requiring CDCR to set aside quarantine and isolation space, this court considered the plaintiffs’ motion for enforcement of quarantine space. However, before this motion was adjudicated by the court, the parties came together to designate spaces within each facility for enhanced outpatient and psychiatric inpatient populations to quarantine, a plan that was approved on February 18, 2021.
On June 14, 2021, CDCR published a report about the lessons it learned during the pandemic. The report detailed the benefits of telehealth for both staff retention and social distancing; the opportunity to observe more treatment and environmental stability as a result of CDCR’s COVID-related limitations on population transfers; and the decreased demand for mental health care, especially at higher levels. CDCR emphasized the need to expand telepsychiatry in light of its findings.
As the pandemic continued, the court issued an order on December 9, 2021, approving a stipulation between the parties regarding the use of therapeutic treatment modules to reduce the amount of Coleman class members designated to maximum custody.
On January 20, 2022, the court modified the defendants’ obligations to file routine status reports. It confirmed that the defendants should continue to file psychiatric vacancy; census, waitlist, and transfer; and suicide prevention activation schedule reports. It also discontinued the defendants’ obligations to file reports regarding transfer from desert institutions or inpatient bed utilization. Finally, the court suspended the defendants’ requirement to detail where their actions departed from the Revised Program Guide as a result of the pandemic. On January 27, the court further discontinued the defendants’ obligation to file reports concerning crisis beds and facility maps. On February 7, the court also discontinued its requirement that the parties update the Program Guide on an annual basis because it perceived that the quality improvement tools would serve a similar purpose.
On March 18, 2022, the court sided with plaintiffs in a dispute over its previous order relating to psychiatrist vacancy rates, holding that "psychiatrist" included those in supervisory positions. 2022 WL 829369. Defendants appealed this ruling to the Ninth Circuit (docket no. 22-15570) a month later, but voluntarily dismissed it soon after.
A court order filed July 25, 2022, indicated that the parties had agreed to have the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation take over the annual report about suicide within the corrections system from the special master.
A month later, on August 9, the court approved a settlement agreement between the defendants and an incarcerated person who had intervened as a plaintiff. The agreement required the defendants to make changes related to their use of a security system that the plaintiff said was preventing him from sleeping; the defendants also paid the plaintiff $50,000.
On January 6, 2023, the court adopted a special master's report about suicide prevention indicating the defendants had implemented 14 of the 29 recommendations from a February 2015 court order.
The following month, on February 28, the court ordered the defendants to start paying monthly fines for not meeting the ten percent vacancy rate for mental health staff and the suicide prevention goals.
A few months later, on April 11, the court established the same ten percent vacancy rate requirement for recreation therapists and medical assistants. 2023 WL 2895186. The next day, the court also adopted a new telepsychiatry policy. The defendants appealed this policy to the Ninth Circuit on May 11, 2023 (docket no. 23-15755).
Later that year, on August 23, the court issued an order relating to a dispute about psychiatric inpatient programs. Based on a report from the special master, the court held that the defendants were providing constitutionally inadequate mental health care. The court rejected the defendants' proposed plan to fix the issue and instead ordered the defendants to enact various changes, including providing at least 20 hours of mental health care per week. 2023 WL 5428481. On the same day, the court ordered the defendants to meet staffing requirements for psychiatric inpatient programs within six months. 2023 WL 5437311. The defendants appealed the first of these orders to the Ninth Circuit a month later, on September 21 (docket no. 23-2485).
On October 11, 2023, the court ordered the defendants to reach a ten percent vacancy level for psychiatric inpatient programs within six months. 2023 WL 6626728. On March 1 of the following year, the special master filed a report indicating that defendants were not sufficiently addressing suicide prevention, despite the court's prior orders. After holding hearings in late 2023, the court issued an order on March 10, 2024, warning the defendants that it would soon hold them in contempt for staffing failures unless they quickly fixed the problem.
Later that month, on March 28, the court sided with the special master over the defendants in a dispute about how the special master should track the defendants' treatment of maximum custody psychiatric patients. The defendants appealed this order to the Ninth Circuit a month later, on April 29 (docket no. 24-2938).
On May 20, 2024, the court ordered the defendants to begin a pilot program for treatment of people with personality disorders, rejecting the defendants' argument that such treatment was outside the scope of the case. The defendants appealed this order to the Ninth Circuit the following month, on June 6 (docket no. 24-3707).
Later that year, on June 25, the court held several defendants in contempt for failure to reach compliance. The court noted that the defendants' fines had reached a total of $111,939,244.00, and that they would continue to accumulate each month. The defendants immediately appealed this order to the Ninth Circuit (case no. 24-4023). The following month, on July 24, the district court denied the defendants' motion to stay the contempt order, but the Ninth Circuit granted a stay two days later.
On July 12, 2024, the court ordered the defendants to show cause why it should not appoint a receiver to take control of the prison system, explaining that the court had done everything it could to get the defendants to comply, but they had still not met the requirements related to staffing, suicide prevention, and data remediation. 2024 WL 3385911.
Later that year, on August 30, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the court's August 23, 2023, order requiring 20 weekly hours of mental health treatment. The Ninth Circuit rejected the defendants' arguments that the 20 hour requirement was unjustified, pointing out that the California Department of State Hospitals was the source of the 20-hour standard. 2024 WL 4003042.
As of September 11, 2024, the case is ongoing, with the district court still considering the receivership issue.
Summary Authors
[Don't use] [Don't use] (4/5/2013)
Jessica Kincaid (11/8/2015)
Justin Hill (4/19/2020)
Elena Malik (5/17/2020)
Averyn Lee (9/25/2020)
Zofia Peach (4/7/2021)
Matthew Feng (4/19/2022)
Micah Pollens-Dempsey (9/8/2024)
Gates v. Deukmejian, Eastern District of California (1987)
Madrid v. Gomez, Northern District of California (1990)
Plata v. Brown (Newsom) / Coleman v. Brown Three-Judge Court, Northern District of California (2001)
Plata v. Newsom, Northern District of California (2001)
Hecker v. CDCR, Eastern District of California (2005)
Perez v. Tilton, Northern District of California (2005)
For PACER's information on parties and their attorneys, see: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4161512/parties/pc-coleman-v-newsom/
Acharya, Ranjini (California)
Ackerman-Brimberg, Mae (California)
Adams, Alison Minet (California)
Acquisto, Stephen Peter (California)
Adam, Gregg Mclean (California)
England, Morrison C. (California)
Farris, Joseph Jerome (Washington)
Ferguson, Warren John (California)
Fletcher, Betty Binns (Washington)
Henderson, Thelton Eugene (California)
Karlton, Lawrence K. (California)
Kennedy, Anthony McLeod (District of Columbia)
Mueller, Kimberly Jo (California)
Rawlinson, Johnnie B. (Nevada)
Reinhardt, Stephen Roy (California)
Tashima, Atsushi Wallace (California)
Thomas, Sidney Runyan (Montana)
Tigar, Jon Steven (California)
Wardlaw, Kim McLane (California)
Ackerman-Brimberg, Mae (California)
Adams, Alison Minet (California)
Anderson, Sara W. (California)
Austin, Roy L. (District of Columbia)
Ballard, Shawna Lee (California)
Bien [this was a mistake], Rosen (California)
Bixby, Laura Katherine (California)
Bornstein, Jeffrey L (California)
Boysen-Aragon, Laura Barbara (California)
Burns, Christopher T. (California)
Campbell, Maya Elizabeth (California)
Center, Claudia B. (California)
Cesare−Eastman, Megan F. (California)
Ells, Lisa Adrienne (California)
Evenson, Rebekah B. (California)
Falkenstien, Kate Martin (California)
Feeser, Mark Raymond (California)
Fischer, Aaron Joseph (California)
Fisher, Jeffrey Thomas (California)
Freedman, Michael Louis (California)
Garske, Sharon Anne (California)
George, Warren E. Jr. (California)
Gourse, Alexander Ross (California)
Grunfeld, Gay Crosthwait (California)
Halter, Mackenzie L. (California)
Harris, George C. (California)
Harrold, Adrienne Pon (California)
Hart, Sophie Jedeikin (California)
Harvey, Lily Bradford (California)
Haskett, Christine Saunders (California)
Heath, Tyler Vance (California)
Henkels, Robert W. (California)
Holston, Benjamin Wycliffe (California)
Jackson-Gleich, Ginger (California)
Karliner, Adela B. (California)
Knapp, Kelly Jean (California)
Leverett, Ingrid S. (California)
Lomio, Rita Katherine (California)
Loughrey, Raymond E (California)
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See docket on RECAP: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4161512/pc-coleman-v-newsom/
Last updated Feb. 2, 2025, 3:18 a.m.
State / Territory: California
Case Type(s):
Special Collection(s):
California's Prisoners' Rights Bar article
Key Dates
Filing Date: April 23, 1990
Case Ongoing: Yes
Plaintiffs
Plaintiff Description:
All inmates with serious mental disorders who were or would be confined within the California Department of Corrections.
Plaintiff Type(s):
Attorney Organizations:
Rosen, Bien, Galvan & Grunfeld
Public Interest Lawyer: Yes
Filed Pro Se: No
Class Action Sought: Yes
Class Action Outcome: Granted
Defendants
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, State
California Department of Mental Health, State
Defendant Type(s):
Facility Type(s):
Case Details
Causes of Action:
Section 504 (Rehabilitation Act), 29 U.S.C. § 701
Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201
Constitutional Clause(s):
Available Documents:
Injunctive (or Injunctive-like) Relief
U.S. Supreme Court merits opinion
Outcome
Prevailing Party: Plaintiff
Nature of Relief:
Injunction / Injunctive-like Settlement
Preliminary injunction / Temp. restraining order
Source of Relief:
Form of Settlement:
Court Approved Settlement or Consent Decree
Content of Injunction:
Implement complaint/dispute resolution process
Goals (e.g., for hiring, admissions)
Amount Defendant Pays: $50,000
Order Duration: 1995 - None
Issues