Oct. 9--Attorneys for California inmates sought Tuesday to block what they claim is an illegal experiment with mentally ill prisoners that would place them in a "dangerous, punitive and inhumane new 'Supermax' " prison.

The block of cells in question -- the first of 10 new high-security segregation units scheduled to go on line before the end of the year -- is an addition to the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (CSATF) at Corcoran state prison.

In talks with attorneys representing mentally ill prisoners in a 12-year-old class-action lawsuit, prison officials have said they want to determine how well mentally ill inmates cope in a sensory-deprived environment.

Two federal judges in California have held that housing mentally ill people under such conditions violates the 8th Amendment's bar on "cruel and unusual punishment," according to papers filed in Sacramento federal court by the attorneys who are seeking a temporary restraining order.

"To add insult to 8th Amendment injury, (the) 'program' to house mentally ill prisoners in the SATF Supermax is actually a cruel, inhumane and illegal human experiment on unconsenting" inmates, the papers say.

While objecting to the characterization of their plan as an experiment, prison officials acknowledge they want to house as many as 52 mentally ill inmates in the new prison for six months to determine "whether the building design is beneficial, neutral, or adverse to the mental health of (already sick) inmates."

Arguments on the motion to restrain Gov. Gray Davis, Youth and Adult Correctional Agency Secretary Robert Presley, and Department of Corrections Director Edward Alameida and his staff are scheduled Thursday before U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton, who has presided over the class-action suit since its inception in 1990.

CDC spokeswoman Margot Bach said Tuesday that the motion is "moot" because the agency has agreed to postpone its planned placement of mentally ill inmates in the units at Corcoran, and because the court-appointed special master in the class action suit does not support the motion.

Rhode Island attorney J. Michael Keating Jr., a nationally known mediator, was appointed by Karlton five years ago to ensure that the care mentally ill inmates are getting meets minimum constitutional and community standards. At the judge's direction, Keating and his staff of mental health professionals are paid by the state.

Michael Bien, one of the inmates' attorneys, said Tuesday that, contrary to Bach's statement, Keating "is quite satisfied" with asking Karlton for a restraining order.

"These units really exist, and they really intend to put mentally ill inmates in there," Bien said. "They've designated dates for doing that, then backed off when we protested. But we can't continue to allow this brinksmanship at the risk of clients' lives. The court needs to get control of this thing before there is some kind of catastrophe."

In a letter Monday to the Corrections Department's health-care division, Keating described the units. He said there is no outside view, "the opening in the cell door faces a blank white wall, there is no direct natural light, and day is barely discernible from night."

Bien, who toured the facility Aug. 27, states in a court declaration: "The cells are specially designed with thick walls and sound baffles ... to prevent inmates from talking to inmates in neighboring cells, and there is no way for inmates to contact the guards. There is no video monitoring of the cells and no line of sight from the guard pod to any of the cells, which would allow guards to spot suicidal, bizarre or predatory behavior."

Keating notified prison officials on Sept. 16 that his "experts are concerned about the isolation and extreme deprivation of senses inherent in the design of the new units."

The department responded to Keating on Thursday. Signed by David Gransee and Tim Rougeux, heads of the department's mental health and institutions services, respectively, the response refers to the plan as "an evaluation project."

It "is an effort to discover whether the building design is beneficial, neutral, or adverse to the mental health of (already sick) inmates," the response states.

Without the data the six-month project would yield, "the department cannot agree that the new ... building design results in extreme sensory deprivation that may be detrimental to the mental health of the inmates," the response says.

The data would chart level-of-care changes, suicide attempts, crises bed admissions and crisis counseling referrals, according to the response. That information would be compared with results from a control group of inmates in the facility's traditional segregation units.

"Experimentation such as this on mentally ill inmates is inhumane and unconscionable, and violates the 8th Amendment of the United States Constitution," inmates' attorneys say in court papers filed Tuesday. "It is also in violation of California and federal law ... on human experimentation (with) prisoners."

However, Bach said Tuesday that the project "is not experimentation, it's not torture. Right now, there is no data showing this program will be harmful to mentally ill inmates."

She said the department wants to house some seriously ill patients in the units "for their own protection. If patients see someone acting out, they tend to act out," she said. A facility that allows no interaction will prevent escalating risk of harm to inmates, she said.

But the inmates' attorneys say in their court papers that the units are nearly identical to the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison near Crescent City.

As with the Pelican Bay SHU, the SATF Supermax is designed "to cause pain and suffering and to punish prisoners by housing them in harsh isolation, with no windows, no work or educational programming, no stimulation such as radio, no ability to communicate with prisoners in adjacent cells, and out-of-cell time limited to exercise in individual cages a few times a week," the court papers say.

Both Karlton, in the class action before him, and U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson of San Francisco, in a lawsuit challenging conditions at Pelican Bay, found that housing mentally ill prisoners in the Pelican Bay SHU was unconstitutional, the papers add.

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(c) 2002, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Last updated: 11/07/2002 - 07:46 PM