Opinion ID: 776026
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Practice

Text: 31 The Board's practice is to rely primarily on Department employees untrained in issues of disability to determine whether an individual is disabled or not, what accommodations are appropriate if he is, and whether those accommodations will be provided. These employees include the Department's institutional staff in the case of state inmates subject to life prisoner parole proceedings, and members of the Department's Parole and Community Services Division, acting on behalf of the Board, in the case of individuals subject to parole revocation proceedings. At the notification stage, disabled prisoners and parolees routinely waive their rights to hearings, frequently because they cannot comprehend the information provided to them. 21 Relatively few Department employees make inquiries in order to determine whether an accommodation is needed, and the Board's ADA officials who evaluate both such inquiries and inquiries made by the Board's hearing officers, do so on the basis of a due process standard that does not comport with the requirements of the ADA. In practice, the Board supplies only the three types of accommodation described above -- an attorney untrained in communications with the disabled; a similarly untrained interpreter; or a delay in proceedings while the hearing is rescheduled. 32 In conjunction with the Board's written policy, its practice throughout the parole and parole revocation process routinely deprives disabled prisoners and parolees of their rights under the ADA. The Board's practice, consistent with its policies, permits Board and Department employees to deny appropriate accommodations requested by disabled prisoners and parolees, and instead to rely on a narrow and unsatisfactory range of alternatives. The Board's adherence to its due process standard undermines the ability of disabled prisoners and parolees to communicate with and comprehend Department and Board officials, at hearings and otherwise, and precludes the mobility impaired from access to hearings. Such treatment not only results in offense and frustration; it appears to have resulted in significant periods of unwarranted incarceration for a number of disabled parolees. Thus, as in the case of its written policy, the Board's practices warrant the holding that the realistic repetition requirement has been met, and that the named plaintiffs have established standing.