On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that the medical care given to patients at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola has been constitutionally inadequate, and has failed to accommodate people with disabilities for decades. The Department of Corrections will now be obligated to make whatever changes are necessary to bring Angola’s standard of medical care and accessibility into compliance with federal law.
From The Promise of Justice Initiative’s press release:
“Civil rights lawyers filed the class action lawsuit, Lewis v. Cain, on behalf of the more than 6,000 people imprisoned at Angola in May of 2015. The ruling comes after several weeks of testimony in October 2018 before Federal District Court Judge Shelly K. Dick, months of lengthy post-trial briefing on behalf of both Plaintiffs and Defendants regarding the conditions in the 18,000-acre maximum-security prison, and a brief visit to the prison on February 5, 2020.”
“This ruling today affirms what we have been saying for years, the men incarcerated at Angola have been subjected to completely inadequate medical care and discrimination based on their disabilities,” said Mercedes Montagnes, Executive Director of the Promise of Justice Initiative and co-lead counsel for Plaintiffs. “Going forward, prison officials will have to start fulfilling their constitutional obligation to provide adequate medical care and disability accommodations to everyone incarcerated there, no matter how young or old, healthy or sick.”
“Judge Dick found the prison’s delivery of medical care to be constitutionally inadequate in numerous ways, focusing particularly on clinical care, specialty care, infirmary care, and emergency care. In her ruling, she noted that “overwhelming deficiencies in the medical leadership and administration of health care at LSP contributes to these constitutional violations.”
“The Court also found that “Defendants have been aware of these deficiencies in the delivery of medical care at LSP for decades.”
“Today’s decision is an enormous win for everyone,” said Jeffrey Dubner, co-lead counsel for the Plaintiffs. “Providing people who are incarcerated with adequate health care not only affirms our basic dignity as human beings, but it reduces future costs to taxpayers and facilitates successful reentry into society.”
“What we have seen firsthand is that the abysmal conditions at Angola are especially harmful to our clients who have disabilities or mobility issues,” said Bruce Hamilton, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Louisiana. “They are systematically denied access to even the most basic accommodations and are prevented from accessing prison services and programming as a result of their disabilities. Now the Department of Corrections will have to make whatever changes are necessary to bring the prison into compliance with federal law.”
We couldn’t be more honored to be a part of this case with our co-counsel The Promise of Justice Initiative, the law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, the ACLU of Louisiana, the Southern Poverty Law Center (“SPLC”), and attorney Jeffrey Dubner, as we worked together for years to achieve this win on behalf of people in need of medical care, and people with disabilities in need of accommodations.
You can read the full press release from The Promise of Justice Initiative here: https://promiseofjustice.org/news/federal-judge-rules-medical-care-at-angola-amounts-to-cruel-and-unusual-punishment-and-violates-the-americans-with-disabilities-act
