Opinion ID: 755757
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Supplemental Decree.

Text: 64 A. Modification. 65 While modification of the Original Decree involved mainly a change from dual control to exclusive DOC management of the Center, the Supplemental Decree and any modifications proposed were substantive. The Supplemental Decree barred solitary confinement for punishment, disciplinary and punitive procedures having no place in the care and treatment of civilly committed patients. The requested modifications would strike the general proscription of disciplinary and punishment procedures and link solitary confinement to the offense underlying the original commitment of the individual. 66 In King II, we were not persuaded that the mere change in control implicated this substantive change. We therefore remanded the question of justification for modification and left it to the district court to decide whether further factual development or opinion evidence was needed. The court decided that it did not require an evidentiary hearing and scheduled a prompt submission of briefs and a hearing for presentation of views. Appellants submitted several affidavits, and appellees rested on the record. The court ruled that a significant change in fact had occurred, based on examination of the Plan and monthly DOC reports which verified DOC's adherence to the Plan, a visit to the Center with counsel, discussion with the residents at the Center, and review of opinions of the qualified professional in charge of the administration of the Plan, Dr. Schwartz. The court also stated that the dramatically changed conditions of segregation that had taken place since 1972 constituted a relevant added factual development. 67 We agree with the district court but would add another factual development called for by our scrutiny of the record, namely, a significant change in the philosophical approach to treatment of civilly committed sex offenders in programs operated by correctional departments. We do not mean that there has been a complete reversal of position under all circumstances from the earlier, more permissive mental health approach to the more restrictive behavior control approach. But the monolithic acceptance of the mental health approach that existed a quarter of a century ago has yielded to the acknowledgment that there is no royal road to treatment and cure. Behavioral control programs including defined offenses and sanctions are now featured in institutions operated by corrections personnel. 68 We begin with the 1989 report of the Governor's Special Advisory Panel on Forensic Mental Health, which preceded the passage in 1994 of Chapter 489. We do not rely on opinions expressed by that Panel, but on some factual statements which have never been impugned. Indicative of some kind of sea change is that most of the thirty-one states that had special dispositional provisions for sex offenders, i.e., indefinite commitments as in Massachusetts, repealed or significantly reformed the statutes. Repeal was recommended by the American Bar Association in its 1984 proposed Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards on the ground that, inter alia, the assumption that mental disability underlay sexual offenses in general was no longer viewed as clinically valid. A 1977 report of the American Psychiatry Association to the same effect was cited. 69 Dr. Roger Smith, the impressively credentialed Director of Michigan's Bureau of Forensic Mental Health, narrowed the focus to programs run by correctional personnel. In 1994, he evaluated the Massachusetts DOC Plan. In an affidavit, he made the point that in institutions where civilly committed residents and corrections inmates are lodged and treated, [E]very attempt must be made to apply program rules, and sanctions for violation of such rules, in a uniform and fair manner, and to avoid the perception (or reality) that civilly committed residents have privileges and rights which exceed those of their DOC peers. In states that have opted to treat sex offenders only in the months prior to parole release, he added, programs generally are provided in minimum security settings. As for DOC's Plan, [t]he establishment of clear rules and sanctions for rule violations by residents is clearly long overdue, and essential to effective management of the therapeutic program. He also found the restrictions on residents' privileges, such as visits and mail, to be consistent with standards found in correctional treatment programs nationwide. 70 To this we add the unrebutted factual assertions of Dr. Schwartz, who is a JRI employee and the Clinical Director of the Center. Having trained staff from most of the prison-based sex offender treatment programs, she made the unqualified statement: Every sex offender program in the country which is operated by a corrections department adheres to the disciplinary policy of the institution. 71 These affidavits were filed with the court in November 1994. Only after remand did appellants seek to counter such statements in any way. In 1997, appellants filed affidavits of clinical directors of treatment programs in Kansas and Washington. These programs were run by a department of Social and Rehabilitation Services or of Social and Health Services and were available only to persons soon to finish serving their sentences or without criminal sentences, whose release depended solely on their ability to control their conduct. It is understandable that in Kansas sequestration for a period in excess of fifty-nine minutes was rare, and that in Washington there had been only one occasion in thirteen months to keep an inmate in a quiet room for up to four hours. Clearly, the populations and the problems were quite different from those in the Center. Appellants also submitted a draft of a proposed patients' handbook from Wisconsin, but although some twenty-two definitions of major misconduct were set forth, the Appendix we were furnished did not contain standards for either incapacitation measures or deterrent sanctions. The program, unlike that we consider here, was confined to those who were only civilly committed. We view appellants' submissions concerning other states' civil-commitments-only programs as essentially comparing oranges to appellees' apples. 72 Finally, appellants attempt to demonstrate that there has been no change in basic treatment philosophy by submitting a 1972 policy statement by Dr. Harry Kozol, then Director of the Center, who did not attribute his policy eschewing punishment to a mental illness theory but rather to a view of self-discipline and personal accountability as focal patient goals. Any similarity with the present treatment philosophy stops at this point. For Dr. Kozol went on to describe the process of enforcing accountability: when a patient was found to have engaged in antisocial and inappropriate behavior, a clinical study would be made of steps needed to be taken, which could include, not segregation, but exclusion from the population and placement in the Special Intensive Treatment Unit. This was, he stated, not looked upon as lock-up but, [i]n operation, this program has excluded patients from the general population for considerably longer periods than patients ... were excluded in lock-up by the correctional authority here. We think it clear that this system--lacking definitions of antisocial and inappropriate behavior, and with sanctions that vary according to the clinical analysis, indeterminate sequestration, and release that depends on our clinical judgment that the risk of his acting offensively and inappropriately is reduced to a reasonable or substantial [sic] level--differs significantly from the Plan's approach. 73 The factual assertions of the Special Advisory Panel and Dr. Schwartz, together with the observations of Michigan's Dr. Smith, lead us to accept as a significant change of fact the adoption of a new treatment approach to sex offender treatment programs conducted by corrections departments. Our survey of this record also convinces us that the court did not err in not delaying its consideration pending further discovery. Appellants' request in their Joint Submission Concerning Supplemental Decree was couched in the alternative. In the event that the court did not deny the motion to modify the Supplemental Decree, they wished discovery, citing as their only objective, the deposition of defendants' witnesses. What we said in connection with the refusal to extend discovery relating to the Original Decree applies here. We see little fruitful prospect in such proceedings; the court did not abuse its discretion in refusing such a request. 74 The district court suitably relied on the Plan, its visit to the Center, its talks with residents who did not complain about discipline, punishment, or conditions in the Minimum Privilege Unit, and on the opinion of Dr. Schwartz who averred, I consider the institution of a disciplinary policy containing clearly defined offenses carrying definitive sanctions as an essential part of a state-of-the-art treatment program. The court added that since punishment was clearly contemplated, it follows that appropriate punishment may include sequestration of some kind. This last proposition may not be self evident. We therefore elaborate. 75 A reading of the Code of Offenses and list of sanctions suggests to us the essentiality of sequestration to this Plan. There are fifty-nine offenses divided among four categories. There are eleven offenses described in the category of the greatest severity, such as killing, rape, arson, and taking hostages. In the high category are seventeen offenses, including assault, bringing in illegal drugs, demanding protection money, and counterfeiting. The nineteen offenses in the moderate category include refusing a direct order, lying to a staff member, and threatening another person. The low category consists of twelve offenses, ranging from use of obscene language and unexcused absences, to failure to follow safety regulations. 76 In like manner, the sanctions vary both according to category and to whether the offense is accompanied by mitigating or aggravating circumstances--or neither. The most severe sanction is placement in the Minimum Privilege Unit for thirty days for a severe offense accompanied by aggravating circumstances. Other sanctions available for severe offenses include loss of privileges from sixty to eighty days, restitution, forfeiture of good time, restitution, and loss of job. The maximum sanction for a high offense, with aggravating circumstances, is placement in the Minimum Privilege Unit for five days with a lesser alternative being room restriction for ten days, and, like a severe offense, restitution, loss of privileges, good time, and job. 77 It is obvious that, if placement in the Minimum Privilege Unit were not available as a sanction, the range of sanctions would be so telescoped and compressed that a resident could not expect much more severe treatment for a high or severe offense than for a moderate offense. For example, a resident who had taken hostages might lose some privileges for eighty days while a resident who refused an order might lose some privileges for five days. The disparity between offenses far exceeds the disparity in sanctions that could be imposed. We therefore also conclude that sequestration is an integral part of the Plan's system of graduated and defined offenses and sanctions. 78 Finally, we cannot fault the court for relying on the vastly different conditions of confinement in the Minimum Privilege Unit today compared to those described in the King complaint. King, placed in solitary confinement without procedural safeguards for calling a guard a dingbat, was placed in a six by nine foot cell, without a sink, only a portable chamber pot, no facilities for drinking water, no reading or writing materials, no visits--not even from his parents--no radio or exercise ... and filthy walls and floor. 79 The Minimum Privilege Unit, on the other hand, is a new building constructed in 1986, with rooms eight by sixteen feet, with toilet and sink. Residents are allowed access to telephone, visitors, exercise periods, daily showers, canteen, and library. The regulations, 103 MTC 423.07, provide that residents in the Minimum Privilege Unit will be accorded treatment by their regular treatment team, unless some modification is dictated by safety and security. Additional or supplemental treatment will be provided as necessary. 80 We are fully satisfied that this combination of a difference in basic approaches, a detailed Plan maintaining treatment standards accompanied by a detailed disciplinary system, and dramatic changes in conditions of confinement amounts to the significant change in facts required by Rufo. 81 As for the second prong, suitable tailoring, there is little need for lengthy discussion. The Plan preserves clinical treatment programs and procedural safeguards. Its departures from the Supplemental Decree, inaugurating a disciplinary system and outlining procedures for charging, deciding, and reviewing infractions seem well within reasonable requirements. The major area of difference, the Plan's provision for sequestration, reveals a restrained resort to this sanction. Placement in the Minimum Privilege Unit is allowed under only four circumstances: commission of a severe offense with aggravating circumstances (up to thirty days); a severe offense without either aggravating or mitigating circumstances (up to twenty days); a severe offense under mitigating circumstances (up to ten days); and a high offense under aggravating circumstances (up to five days). The only other kind of confinement is restriction to one's room, which can be imposed for ordinary and aggravated high offenses for seven and ten days, and for an aggravated moderate offense for five days. 82 Given the legitimacy of a disciplinary system in a treatment program under the auspices of a department of correction, such utilization of sequestration fulfills the requirement of being suitably tailored to the change of circumstances. We find that modification of the Supplemental Decree is therefore justified. 83