NCJ Number
179527
Journal
Correctional Law Reporter Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Dated: June/July 1999 Pages: 1-15
Date Published
1999
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This case analysis of Ruiz v. Estelle, 503 F.Supp. 1265 (S.D. Tex. 1980) focuses on the inmate mental health issues and touches also on significant issues of experts and expert testimony.
Abstract
In the Ruiz case, the court found that the Texas Department of Correctional Justice's (TDCJ's) prisons violated the constitutional rights of inmates with mental illness who are confined in administrative segregation. The court also found that a pattern of malicious and excessive use of force by officials violated the Eighth Amendment. The plaintiff's experts presented testimony that supported their argument that the administrative segregation environment deprived inmates of the minimal necessities of civilized life. These units were found by the court to be incubators of psychoses, seeding illness in healthy inmates and exacerbating illness in those already suffering mental infirmities. The experts testified to a world in which smeared feces, self-mutilation, and incessant babbling and shrieking were almost daily events. Defendants attacked plaintiffs' method in supplying charts, cases, and inmates, arguing that nowhere was there a valid scientific inquiry that would support a claim of systemic failure. The judge rejected defense arguments, determining that an expert's evaluation of a prison system's quality of medical care, use of force, or protection of inmates is not the type of testimony that necessarily implicates a requirement of scientific methodology.