By Maxine Bernstein
oregonlive.com
WOODBURN, Ore. — Joshua A. Turnidge, who along with his father was convicted in the deadly 2008 Woodburn bank bombing, was moved off death row and placed instead at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla in 2020.
There, he has complained that the 24-hour lighting of his cell has triggered his post-traumatic stress disorder and has been used by the prison system as a “psychological weapon,” according to his court filings.
He said he’s suffered severe sleep deprivation, intense anxiety, debilitating headaches and significant irritability. After the state denied several of his grievances, he filed a lawsuit last summer against the Oregon Department of Corrections , alleging its lighting policy amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of his Eighth Amendment rights.
On Monday, a federal judge threw out his case, siding with the state prison system, which argued that the configuration of cells at the Umatilla prison requires them to be illuminated so security staff can see inside.
The cells are made up of three walls, with a small window in each cell’s door. One of two lights in the cell is on at all times - either the main cell lights or the security lights.
“A reasonable fact finder could not find that the constant lighting in Turnidge’s cell rises to the level of an objectively severe deprivation,” U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman ruled in his written opinion.
The judge found that the prison has taken steps to dim some of the lights as much as possible, maintaining low-level lighting for security reasons.
Prisoners control the main lights in their cell, with some exceptions.
The exceptions include: every morning between the 6 a.m. mandatory wake-up time and the end of breakfast, during cell cleaning and prisoner movements, and whenever security staff needs increased visibility into cells, according to the opinion.
The prison installed the main lights behind a diffuser that “absorbs and scatters” the light, according to prison officials.
When the main lights are off in a cell, the security lights are activated.
“The security lights are installed in a way that substantially limits their output, but remain at a level sufficient for security staff to perform security/tier checks,” Mosman wrote.
The prison also has covered a portion of the security lights’ lightbulbs with black electrical tape to increase prisoners’ comfort, the judge found.
While the judge said he doesn’t doubt the discomfort cited by Turnidge, he noted that the effect on a prisoner “is not the only” factor when considering whether a prison practice amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The prison must have acted with deliberate indifference toward the prisoner and that’s not what’s in the record before him, Mosman ruled.
“Defendants provided evidence that they have taken steps to dim cell lights and minimize use of the brighter main lights, except for in the morning, and they assert a security interest in maintaining a low level of constant illumination for security checks,” the judge wrote.
Mosman also found that the corrections department is entitled to qualified immunity against Turnidge’s claims.
The judge also rejected Turnidge’s claim that the prison violated his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Despite Turnidge’s post-traumatic stress disorder, Mosman found that Turnidge was not denied benefits provided to other prisoners.
Joshua Turnidge , now 50, and his father, Bruce Turnidge , now 74, were both convicted of aggravated murder after prosecutors said they carried out a bank-robbery fantasy by planting a bomb outside the West Coast Bank in Woodburn in 2008. The plot went awry when the bomb exploded as police officers, thinking the bomb was a hoax, moved it inside the bank and tried to dismantle it.
The blast killed Oregon State Police Senior Trooper William Hakim and Woodburn Police Capt. Tom Tennant . It critically injured Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell and wounded bank employee Laurie Perkett .
The father and son were sentenced to death.
But in the summer of 2020, the Oregon Department of Corrections started to empty death row at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem and send those who lived there to general population or other prison housing instead.
In December 2022 , then-Gov. Kate Brown announced she would commute the sentences of the Turnidges - and 15 others who were on Oregon’s death row - to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Bruce Turnidge remains at the Oregon State Penitentiary.
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