Tag Archives: BOP mental health care

Courts Release Prisoners Because of BOP Medical Neglect – Update for December 8, 2022

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

TWO COMPASSIONATE RELEASE DECISIONS SLAM BOP MEDICAL CARE

Two district courts, separated by some 3,400 miles, granted compassionate release to prisoners in the last two weeks based in substantial part on inadequate Bureau of Prisons medical care.

BOPMedical221208In Greensboro, North Carolina, a federal judge reduced Ronnie Burr’s 240-month drug distribution conspiracy sentence to time served. Ronnie filed for compassionate release in 2020 but was denied on § 3553(a) sentencing factors. When he sought reconsideration, the district court decided he “was not receiving appropriate medical care for all his medical issues, that he lived through “dire conditions… at Fort Dix during the pandemic caused in part by BOP mismanagement, and that these facts constituted extraordinary and compelling reason to warrant a sentence reduction.” Including “the delays in medical treatment, including a recommended endoscopy for his gastritis, and the ‘exceptionally difficult’ conditions of confinement during the pandemic,” the judge cut his sentence by nine months.

In May 2022, Ronnie filed again, complaining that BOP medical treatment had not improved. Ronnie still had not gotten the endoscopy that had been recommended two years before, but the government argued the endoscopy had “not been considered urgent by treating health professionals.” The court rejected that as “conjecture,” relying on Ronnie’s expert’s evidence that a gastric ulcer can be cancerous, an endoscopy is needed to determine if Mr. Burr has a gastric ulcer, Mr. Burr’s healthcare providers have repeatedly ordered an endoscopy, the BOP repeatedly failed to follow through with arranging one, and failure to timely diagnose a cancerous gastric ulcer can be fatal. When the BOP finally scheduled the test, they failed to arrange appropriate staffing to take Mr. Burr off-site for the test, and then did not reschedule the test to occur for two more months. Beyond explaining that “staffing issues” prompted the canceling of the finally-scheduled endoscopy, the government has offered no evidence of why it took them years to schedule the endoscopy or why it did not arrange for adequate staffing once the test was finally scheduled.”

The Court reduced Ronnie’s remaining 8½ years to time served, observing that “[w]hile it is a positive that the procedure is finally scheduled for later this year, that is worth little weight, since the BOP already canceled Mr. Burr’s endoscopy once and may do so again.”

The Court said, “The uncontradicted evidence shows that the BOP has failed to obtain a medically-ordered test for over two years, that the failure could lead to a failure to timely diagnose and treat cancer, and that the failure is not an aberration, given the long delay in scheduling a consultation with a pulmonologist and the failure to schedule a follow-up visit after his surgery… Continued incarceration in the face of ongoing constitutionally deficient medical care is unjust punishment, not just punishment.”

healthbareminimum220603Meanwhile, up north in Alaska, Tom Ranes – serving a 360-month sentence for a drug conspiracy (with 8½ years to go) – also had sought a compassionate release in 2020 that the court had denied for § 3553(a) factors. He filed again last summer.

Tom was a healthy man when he began his sentence, but a fall from an upper bunk injured his tailbone, and everything spiraled downward from there. Now, the Court found, he “has significant digestive tract issues and diseases of the anus and rectum, for which he has received over twenty surgeries during his incarceration. He has had multiple sections of his large intestine removed due to complications from medical treatment he received while in BOP custody, followed by multiple procedures to implant and then repair medical mesh for an incisional hernia. After using a colostomy bag from 2009 through 2011, Mr. Ranes had multiple surgeries to correct subsequent complications. He… has frequent UTIs,~ and endures chronic abdominal pain and abnormalities… In 2019, Mr. Ranes suffered a herniated disc and a detached disc in his spine… Nearly three years later, he has yet to receive the necessary surgery for his injury.”

The Government denied that Tom’s condition presented “extraordinary and compelling circumstances” and argued release was inappropriate under the § 3553(a) sentencing factors. The Probation Office agreed.

The Court did not. It noted that “in the two years since the Court’s previous Order… Mr. Ranes’s health continues to deteriorate, and, troublingly, BOP has yet to provide appropriate medical treatment — even after this Court warned that he has received ‘alarmingly inadequate medical care’ and has ‘yet to receive necessary surgery.’”

prisondoctor221208The Court said that “in isolation, Mr. Ranes’s loss of a vital bodily function and diminished ability to care for himself while at a correctional facility could constitute extraordinary and compelling circumstances. However, it is the confluence of these conditions with the COVID-19 pandemic that undoubtedly warrant release.” Tom’s “medical condition, his inability to receive appropriate medical treatment and supplies while in BOP custody, and his increased risk of complications from COVID-19 infection present extraordinary and compelling circumstances that justify release.”

Tom’s sentence was reduced to time served with expanded supervised release, two years of which will be served on home confinement.

United States v. Burr, Case No 1:15-cr-362, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 216371 (M.D.N.C., Dec. 1, 2022)

Order Granting Renewed Motion for Compassionate Release, United States v. Ranes, Case No 3:06-cr-00041 (ECF 1165) (D.Alaska, Nov. 22, 2022)

– Thomas L. Root

Unwelcome Spotlight Shines on the BOP – Update for August 19, 2019

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

MEDIA CRANKS UP HEAT ON BOP IN WAKE OF EPSTEIN SUICIDE

abandonprison170501The Justice Dept. last Tuesday reassigned the warden at MCC New York, where Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself nine days ago, and placed on leave two Bureau of Prison staff who had been monitoring Epstein’s unit at the time. The shakeup came as the MCC fell under intense scrutiny, with critics calling the suicide “emblematic of a neglected, understaffed and dysfunctional federal prison system.”

A day earlier, Attorney General William P. Barr decried “serious irregularities” at the MCC and criticized the BOP’s “failure” to keep Epstein secure.

USA Today said that the suicide “has cast a jarring spotlight on the nation’s largest prison system plagued for years by dangerous staffing shortages, violence and widespread sexual harassment of female officers.”

Noting the BOP’s efforts to fill up to 5,000 vacancies and its lack of a director since Mark Inch resigned a year ago, Eric Young, national president of the federal prison workers union, said, “We’ve got a serious problem.”

The Houston Chronicle reported that Epstein’s suicide is “the latest black eye for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, the jail’s parent agency that already was under fire for the October death of Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger… Taken together, the deaths underscore ‘serious issues surrounding a lack of leadership’ within the BOP, said Cameron Lindsay, a former warden who ran three federal lockups, including the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.”

shu160201Other outlets reported that “major irregularities” in the MCC Special Housing Unit contributed to Epstein not being monitored properly. Those stories were followed by reports that the irregularities were primarily due to COs “working extreme overtime shifts to make up for staffing shortages the morning of his apparent suicide,” according to Politico. A BOP source was quoted as saying that the SHU was staffed with one guard working a fifth straight day of overtime and another who was working mandatory overtime.

The New York Times reported that one of the SHU guards that day was not a full-fledged correctional officer, and neither guard had checked on Epstein for several hours before he was discovered.

By the middle of last week, the focus was on BOP staffing levels. The Marshall Project reported that the Epstein suicide “followed steep and persistent staffing shortages that exceeded the rate of decline in the federal prison population… The federal prison system lost 12% of its workforce from the start of the Trump administration through the end of 2018. Administration officials have argued that the staff drop, which resulted partly from a hiring freeze, was mitigated by a reduction in the number of federal prisoners. But… over a two-year period between Sept. 2016 and Sept. 2018, the bureau lost 10% of its employees. In that same period, the total number of federal prisoners dropped by just over 5%.”

CNN reported that the BOP continues to rely on “augmentation,” using non-correctional officers in CO positions to cover staff shortages, noting that Congress has repeatedly asked the BOP to give up augmentation, even while denying it enough budget to hire more COs. The Hill complained that “it is the failure of leadership inside the permanent Justice Department bureaucracy — one that has served multiple presidents, Republican and Democrat — to fully address the resources and cultural deficiencies” that has resulted in the staffing crisis at BOP.

Schadenfreude aside, it is rare that media attention and Congressional hand-wringing results in changes in the BOP that positively affects staff or inmates.

Washington Post, Justice Dept. reassigns warden of jail where Epstein died, puts two staffers on leave (Aug. 13)

USA Today, Jeffrey Epstein suicide casts spotlight on federal prison system riven by staff shortages, violence, sexual harassment (Aug. 12)

Houston Chronicle, Federal New York lockup draws new scrutiny in Epstein death (Aug. 12)

Politico, Jeffrey Epstein’s guards were working extreme OT shifts (Aug. 12)

The Marshall Project, Epstein’s Death Highlights A Staffing Crisis in Federal Prisons (Aug. 14)

The New York Times, In Short-Staffed Jail, Epstein Was Left Alone for Hours; Guard Was Substitute (Aug. 12)

The Hill, Deadly déjà vu: Epstein’s prison death was decades in the making (Aug. 13)

– Thomas L. Root

BOP’s Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week – Update for November 29, 2018

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BOP WALKS INTO BAD PRESS BUZZSAW

baddayA181130BOP Acting Director Hugh J. Hurwitz probably felt more like the dinner than the diner by the time Thanksgiving rolled around a week ago, after the beating his agency took in the media in the preceding days.

First, the New York Times published a long story detailing the sexual harassment suffered by female BOP staff. “For women who work in federal prisons, where they are vastly outnumbered by male colleagues and male inmates,” the Times wrote, “concealing every trace of their femininity is both necessary and, ultimately, futile… Some inmates… stare… grope, threaten and expose themselves. But what is worse, according to testimony, court documents, and interviews with female prison workers, male colleagues can and do encourage such behavior, undermining the authority of female officers and jeopardizing their safety. Other male employees join in the harassment themselves.”

The Times found that women who reported harassment “face retaliation, professional sabotage and even termination,” while the careers of many male BOP harassers and those who protect them flourish. The Times named names.

But The Gray Lady wasn’t done with the BOP. Two days later, the paper ran a detailed piece questioning how Whitey Bulger ended up at Hazleton general population, where he was promptly murdered. The Times reported, “Several prison workers questioned why so many people at Coleman and in the Texas office would have approved a transfer of Mr. Bulger to Hazelton, a facility that houses some inmates tied to organized crime and that has a reputation for being dangerous for snitches. The workers also questioned why staff members at Hazelton would have approved placing Mr. Bulger in the prison’s general population. Mr. Bulger was the third inmate to be killed at Hazelton this year.”

The paper quoted one unnamed worker who said, “That was a monumental failure and a death sentence for Whitey.”

The Times said the BOP issued a statement saying that Bulger’s transfer to Hazelton was made in accordance with its policy, including a review of whether inmates there were known to be a threat to him.

mental181130Meanwhile, The Marshall Project suggested that the BOP’s 2014 policy that promised better care and oversight for inmates with mental-health issues was a fraud. “Data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request shows that instead of expanding treatment, the bureau has lowered the number of inmates designated for higher care levels by more than 35 percent.” TMP says prison staff are determining that prisoners—some with long histories of psychiatric problems—don’t require any routine care at all. As of last February, the BOP classified just 3% of inmates as having a mental illness serious enough to require regular treatment. By comparison, more than 30% of California state prisoners receive care for a “serious mental disorder.” In New York, its 21%, and In Texas, it’s about 20%.

TMP says that when BOP changed its rules, “officials did not add the resources needed to implement them, creating an incentive for employees to downgrade inmates to lower care levels.”

The New York Times, Hazing, Humiliation, Terror: Working While Female in Federal Prison (Nov. 17, 2018)

The New York Times, The Whitey Bulger Murder Mystery: Two Assailants and a Prison Full of Suspects (Nov. 19, 2018)

The Marshall Project, Treatment Denied: The Mental Health Crisis in Federal Prisons (Nov. 20, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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