Can a prison inmate sue the government (or whoever is in charge of the prisons in whatever area this takes place), for instances where assault, rape, etc take place?
Since they have been placed into a closed system where all and any actions are being strictly controlled, would that not mean that the guards, or whoever, failed in protecting the prisoner from harm, and as such was guilty of negligence or somesuch?
Prisoners can - and do - sue the government for all manner of abuses, both real and perceived, while incarcerated. One suit I remember reading about involved an inmate who sued because he could not get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch everyday. Religious expression is a popular lawsuit arena for inmates (one sued because his Satanic religion called for ritual animal sacrifice and the prison wouldn’t allow it - go figure). Most federal prisoners have access to pretty decent law libraries and a ton of free time on their hands. Some inmates become pretty good lawyers while incarcerated. Others just flood the system with self-filed, frivolous lawsuits.
Bringing forth a lawsuit isn’t exactly a children’s pastime, and I imagine its inherent difficulties would be compounded by having to spend the vast majority of your time locked in a tiny cell without direct access to the outside world. Add to this the problem of finding willing and reliable witnesses to come forward to support your claims. How are you going to prove that you were raped by members of a particular prison gang when members of that selfsame gang are terrorizing or otherwise intimidating any witnesses and other victims into silence? And think of the ire you would earn from the prison guards if you were to implicate them in your suit. At best, any special privileges you may have earned with them could be summarily revoked; at worst, they could arrange or conspire to deliberately look the other way the next time you find yourself in trouble with your fellow inmates.
The OP did not ask about frivolous lawsuits, but about suits arising from genuine and extremely serious wrongs such as rape. The mere fact that a wrong was done to someone while they were in prison does not automatically render the wrong, or an attempt to seek redress, frivolous.
The discussion above about frivolous lawsuits omits the important point that a suit which is frivolous is ordinarily dismissed on this ground. Some states–Missouri, for instance-imposes penalties of various kinds on prisoners who are found to have misused the judicial system by filing frivolous suits. It has been observed that some inmates are prone to filing such suits as a means of dealing with the tedium of incarceration; if nothing else, getting to court can mean a day out for them and their witnesses.
I assume the OP meant to ask if one could sue successfullyfor such wrongs. The doctrine of sovereign immunity grants widespread protection to governmental entities for the harm they cause in the administration of their duties. While this can make successful suits against the government more difficult than would otherwise be the case, there are numerous instances in which people have successfully sued the government for injuries suffered while they or a relative were incarcerated.
There have, for instance, been cases where damages were awarded after jailers failed to prevent a suicide. Similar judgments have been obtained against hospitals, and even, in some unusual cases, against hotels as they too are seen as being in the position of extending care and protection to a party.
In one notable case, the city of East St. Louis, Illinois, lost the title to its city hall back in the 90s. It was awarded to a plaintiff as a means of satisfying a judgment he won for injuries he sustained when he was severely beaten while being held in the city jail.
The OP did not ask about frivolous lawsuits, but about suits arising from genuine and extremely serious wrongs such as rape. The mere fact that a wrong was done to someone while they were in prison does not automatically render the wrong, or an attempt to seek redress, frivolous.
The discussion above about frivolous lawsuits omits the important point that a suit which is frivolous is ordinarily dismissed on this ground. Some states–Missouri, for instance-impose penalties of various kinds on prisoners who are found to have misused the judicial system by filing frivolous suits. It has been observed that some inmates are prone to filing such suits as a means of dealing with the tedium of incarceration; if nothing else, getting to court can mean a day out for them and their witnesses.
I assume the OP meant to ask if one could sue successfullyfor such wrongs. The doctrine of sovereign immunity grants widespread protection to governmental entities for the harm they cause in the administration of their duties. While this can make successful suits against the government more difficult than would otherwise be the case, there are numerous instances in which people have successfully sued the government for injuries suffered while they or a relative were incarcerated.
There have, for instance, been cases where damages were awarded after jailers failed to prevent a suicide. Similar judgments have been obtained against hospitals, and even, in some unusual cases, against hotels as they too are seen as being in the position of extending care and protection to a party.
In one notable case, the city of East St. Louis, Illinois, lost the title to its city hall back in the 90s. It was awarded to a plaintiff as a means of satisfying a judgment he won for injuries he sustained when he was severely beaten while being held in the city jail. As rabbit suggests, such tort actions are generally founded on a theory of negligence.
Uh, slipster, methinks you read only part of my post. My first line states “Prisoners can - and do - sue the government for all manner of abuses, both real and perceived, while incarcerated”. Later on I stated that “Some inmates become pretty good lawyers while incarcerated. Others just flood the system with self-filed, frivolous lawsuits”. Not all prisoner lawsuits are frivolous, but a great many are. Granted, the only examples I gave were of frivolous lawsuits, but the fact remains the same:
A prisoner can file a lawsuit against the prison system, be it government or privately run, for just about anything their heart desires. Winning, or even getting to court, is an entirely different matter.
Well if lawsuits happen, then how is the situations in which they are able to occur legal? What I mean is, given that these things CAN happen (assault, say), and seeing as how its been proven (by a given number of successfull lawsuits) that it was the penitentiary’s fault, then how can the legal system be justified in continuing in such a manner as to endanger the lives/safety of the inmates?
If legislation is passed to protect private individuals from danger or harm caused by the actions of others, (safety regulations for vehicles and structures for example, or regulations on the handling or storing of dangerous substances), why doesn’t it apply to inmates? One would figure that if its known that sending someone to jail (under the current system) will result in a greatly increased chance that they are injured/killed, then it would be up to the penal system to do something about it, wouldn’t it?
The seminal Supreme Court case in the area of prison rape is Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994). Farmer stands for the proposition that in order to prevail in such an action, two prongs of a test must be met: the injury received must be “objectively and sufficiently serious,” and the prison officials that permitted it to happen must have had a sufficiently culpable state of mind. This culpability was defined as “deliberate indifference to inmate health or safety.” It’s not enough to show bad conditions, in other words; you must show that the prison administration was deliberately ignoring the conditions or danger.
- Rick
Here’s a hilarious example of a real case dealing with obnoxious actions brought by a prisoner.*
*I’m not saying that prisoner’s actions are all obnoxious.
**Some of this stuff is out of context, I know.
Speaking as a Maximum Security Prison Physician:
Most inmates have a lot of time on their hands, and a law library available to them. There are also other prisoners who are “jailhouse lawyers” who make it their institutional career to file suits, and help other inmates to file them also.
Not all are frivolous. But most of them sure are. In my state, 60% of the complaints to the Medical Examining Board are from inmates. Our Department of Corrections has a full time staff of attorneys who do nothing but process inmate lawsuits.
There’s nothing like getting served papers from the sheriff while you’re working in the prison, only to see a hand-printed lawsuit laborously drawn up by an inmate, naming you and every other person of authority mentioned in their medical record.
One inmate claimed that my failure to immediately get him on the latest therapy for his chronic illness (which he’d had for about a decade) within 2 months of my sole meeting him resulted in him becoming overweight, with declining cognition, and erectile dysfunction.
In other words a single encounter with me left him fat, stupid and impotent! I didn’t know I was that powerful!
To conclude as others have already noted: Yes, inmates can and do sue. There are also times when they should sue. Deliberate Indifference is something that needs to be eradicated from our Correctional Facilities.
But on the whole, they should sue 99% less often than they do, IMHO.