NOW - NEW YORK STATE SUPPORTS:
Amador v. Andrews Amicus Brief |
Search Site With  |
|
|
|
In January 2003, the Prisoners’ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society of New York and Debevoise & Plimpton filed a putative class action law suit in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, on behalf of women under custody of the New York State Department of Correctional Services "DOCS")who have been sexually abused by correction officers.
The suit, Amador v. Andrews, details numerous alleged instances of custodial abuse, ranging from inappropriate touching to rape. Amador charges that Department supervisors and administrators turn a blind eye to the sexual abuse of women inmates and that DOCS’ policies and practices fail to protect woman prisoners from sexual assault and harassment by male prison employees – resulting in the violation of women inmates’ First, Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments rights. The suit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief including improved officer screening, training and assignment policies, improved investigative procedures, appropriate mental health care for sexually abused women prisoners and monetary damages for the plaintiffs.
On September 13, 2005, the Judge presiding over Amador, Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy, issued an order which included a request for both parties to brief the court on the issue of whether the plaintiffs met the exhaustion requirement under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”)(“No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.”) Pub. L. No. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321-66 (1996), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) (2005).
In their motion to dismiss, the defendants claim that plaintiffs failed to exhaust their administrative remedies because plaintiffs’ grievances addressed only specific incidents of sexual assault and did not address plaintiffs’ claims for injunctive relief. In part, Judge Duffy has requested briefing on whether – in order to meet the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement – a woman inmate who wants to challenge DOCS policies and procedures must not only grieve the specific incident (i.e., “Officer X sexually assaulted me,”) but also the policies and procedures that “allowed” the incident to happen (i.e., “I don’t think DOCS has adequately trained its staff to stop sexual misconduct and I don’t think staff who abuse women prisoners are appropriately disciplined, supervised or investigated.”)
Working with New York University Law Professor Claudia Angelos, members of NYU’s Civil Rights Clinic Erin Dow and Laura Schattschneider are currently drafting an amicus brief to support Amador. The brief intends to argue that the exhaustion standard for sexually abused women is untenable and that a decision dismissing plaintiffs’ suit on grounds of failure to exhaust would set a dangerous precedent for future prisoner civil rights litigation, especially with respect to litigation addressing the issue of officer sexual misconduct. Expecting women prisoners who have been traumatized by sexual abuse not only to file a grievance about the specific incident within the mandated 14-day timeline, but also to complain about the way in which DOCS handles and investigates their complaints, is seriously problematic.
Female inmates who are subjected to sexual assault are often reluctant to report abuse for fear of retaliation or fear that their claims will be ignored or rejected because they are difficult to substantiate without physical proof. Even if an inmate believes that reporting will help, she often holds back because of feelings of humiliation, shame and self-blame, common emotions for survivors of sexual assault. A dismissal of plaintiffs’ suit on grounds of failure to exhaust may very well have a chilling effect on women prisoners’ willingness to come forward with claims of sexual abuse – a reality that will harm women inmates and undermine DOCS’ ability to track and reduce instances of officer sexual misconduct. Such a decision would be out of line with the intent of the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement to reduce the quantity and improve the quality of prisoner law suits and would serve only to strengthen the barriers to effective legal redress for women in prison whose human rights have been violated.
We ask organizations concerned about the rights of women in prison and the ability of inmates to access the courts to consider signing on to this brief.
Claudia Angelos, New York University Law Professor; Erin Dow and Lauara Schattschneider, NYU Law's Civil Rights Clinic members; and Tamar Kraft-Stolar, Women in Prison Project Director, Correctional Association of New York.
|
