Opinion ID: 514193
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: 2 Most of the District's prison facilities at Lorton have generated litigation from inmates protesting conditions as violations of the eighth amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Two lines of complaints resulted in consent decrees; two others went to trial. The suits protesting conditions at the Central Facility were resolved through one of the consent decrees, entered April 28, 1982. Inmates had complained that Central, built in the 1920s and arranged as a series of open-bay dormitories, subjected inmates to virtually unchecked violence, was over-crowded, dilapidated, understaffed, unsanitary and lacked necessary medical care. Inter alia, the District consented to a provision that prohibited it from incarcerating more than 1166 inmates in the facility. 3 On August 6, 1988, five days after the district court order now under review issued, there were 1491 inmates at Central, excluding the 86 prisoners in the P.G. Modular Unit which is not subject to the decree. This dropped to 1379 by August 31, climbed to 1451 on September 4 and dropped again to 1346 by September 26, the day this appeal was argued. The District of Columbia admits that it has failed to comply with the population ceiling for all but a two-month period since July 1987. 4 On July 16, 1987, plaintiffs moved that the District be held in contempt for violating the consent decree. The district court held the District in contempt and fined it $250 per day per overcrowded dormitory. But the District continued to pack more inmates into Central than permitted by the consent decree. In December, plaintiffs moved that sanctions be substantially increased. By the time of the hearing, on December 16, the District had removed a sufficient number of inmates that it was in compliance, and higher sanctions were denied. Only two months later, the District was violating the population lid again and has continued to do so since. This court upheld the contempt order on August 26, 1988, rejecting the District's claim that it was impossible for it to comply with the consent decree. Nonetheless, the District has continued to flout the order, seemingly treating the fines as license fees that buy it the right to prolong the dangerously congested conditions at Central. 5 While the District's appeal of the contempt order was pending, on May 25, 1988, plaintiffs moved to enforce the consent decree--if necessary, by an order that prisoners be released. After the hearing on that motion, the District moved to modify the population ceiling in the consent decree. The District did not request a specific change, but only that the parties be directed to meet and agree. The District rejected a proposal that the ceiling be raised 10 percent along with an increase in medical and correctional staff. The District also declined to file a breakdown of how many additional inmates it was requesting and what plans it had for additional personnel. 6 On August 1, 1988, the district court denied the motion to modify and issued several orders to specifically enforce the decree. It refused to issue a release order as requested but enjoined the District from assigning any more prisoners to Central and required it to remove at least 150 prisoners per month from Central until the population reached the decree's specified maximum of 1166. Compliance was to be reached by November 1 at the latest. In addition, in the certification provision which we vacate, the court enjoined any transfers of inmates from Central to another District prison unless the Director of the Department of Corrections first certified to the district court that the transfer would not threaten to violate his duty to provide for the adequate care, safekeeping, protection, instruction, and discipline of persons housed in the institution to which the inmates were being transferred. 7 The District contends that modification of the decree should have been granted because: there are changed circumstances unforeseen at the time it was entered--a massive increase in felony drug convictions; the District has made a good faith effort to comply with the decree; forced compliance would imperil the public interest by requiring release of prisoners. Further, the District maintains that the district court abused its discretion in issuing the injunctions.