By Maxine Bernstein
oregonlive.com
LINCOLN COUNTY, Ore. — A federal judge has ordered Lincoln County to release a defendant from disciplinary segregation after finding the jail failed to provide him with notice or a hearing to challenge the punishment.
U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane also found that the county’s practice of authorizing segregation as punishment for jailed defendants and only offering an after-the-fact appeals process was unconstitutional.
Lincoln County jail officials had argued that Andrew Laud Barnett, 41, had a chance to appeal his segregation and characterized him as a problem inmate who defied orders, violated jail rules and threatened jail staff and other inmates.
They said Barnett had a history of “assaultive” behavior to jail staff and argued that his lawsuit is “nothing more than another example of his recalcitrant and manipulative conduct.”
Lincoln County maintained that disciplinary segregation isn’t an “atypical and significant hardship” that would curtail a defendant’s liberty and require due process protections.
But McShane said the county got it wrong, calling the county’s argument “patently incorrect,” in his ruling Tuesday.
Jails can impose such discipline on convicted prisoners, but not those awaiting trial, without prior notice or an opportunity to challenge it, he wrote.
“Unlike convicted prisoners, pretrial detainees have a ‘due process right against restrictions that amount to punishment,’” McShane wrote, citing case law.
“Plaintiff may be a disruptive and volatile inmate, but his behavioral issues do not excuse or permit the violation of his due process rights,” McShane added.
Barnett alleged he has been placed in essentially a disciplinary “lockdown” for up to 30 days without a hearing. While locked down, he has been confined in his cell for all but 30 minutes of each day, with no access to the law library or the recreation yard, he argued.
The jail said the sanctions were imposed because Barnett violated jail rules and disobeyed orders.
The jail’s handbook doesn’t distinguish between sentenced inmates and pretrial detainees, allowing everyone held in custody to be punished with segregation without constitutional protections, the ruling said.
As a result, the judge issued a temporary restraining order, barring the jail from further disciplining Barnett with segregation unless he first receives a hearing.
Barnett represented himself in the case.
He remains in custody in the Lincoln County Jail, accused of tampering with a witness through jail phone calls and messages to a woman involved in a pending theft, unauthorized use of a vehicle and reckless driving case against him. He has a March 16 trial date.
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