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Solitary Confinement And Mental Health Care At Louisiana Prison To Receive Federal Oversight

For years, people incarcerated on the disciplinary tiers at David Wade Correctional Center in north Louisiana — including those with mental illness —  were confined for too long in cells that were too small, sometimes without bedding or without anything except a paper gown.  They were not given meaningful access to mental health care beyond psychotropic medication — and even that was administered haphazardly.  Those were the findings of U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Foote of the Western District of Louisiana in 2022, when she ruled in favor of Wade prisoners being held in solitary confinement in a class-action lawsuit against the prison, The Lens reports. David Wade’s overly harsh disciplinary system, combined with its failure to provide mental healthcare had the “mutually enforcing effect of depriving individuals of basic mental health needs and exposing them to mental torture,” she ruled.  Foote found that the prison was using solitary confinement, as a “depository for the mentally ill,” holding prisoners in their cells for more than 22 hours a day.


Last week, Foote again found that Wade’s prisoners are continuing to suffer from those “inhumane and torturous conditions.” She ordered oversight and remedial measures to bring the facility to constitutional standards. The conditions at David Wade can be remedied by court order because, Foote found, they violate prisoners’ constitutional rights, to be free of cruel and unusual punishment, along with a violation of other federal statutes, including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The original November 2022 ruling followed a 17-day hearing called the “liability-phase” of trial. A few months later, Foote presided over the “remedy-phase” portion of trial, to determine whether the prison was continuing to violate prisoners’ rights and what measures needed to be implemented to improve conditions. Last week, Foote ordered federal oversight, after finding that not much had changed since her initial ruling nearly two years ago. Foote’s most recent ruling marks the second time in as many years that a federal judge placed a Louisiana prison under federal oversight. Last fall, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick of the Middle District of Louisiana ordered oversight of what she described as the “abhorrent” medical care at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. The state has appealed that order. 

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