Medical Care for Prisoners: The Evolution of a Civil Right

See, e.g., Derro R.A. , Admission Health Evaluation of Inmates of a City-County Workhouse, Minnesota Medicine 61:333–37(1978).

See, e.g., Derro R.A. Health Problems in a City-County Workhouse, Public Health Reports 93:379–85 (1978); Engenbretsen B. Olson J.W. , Primary Care in a Penal Institution: A Study of Health Care Problems Encountered, Medical Care 13:775–81 (1975); King L. Geis G. , Tuberculosis in a Large Urban Jail, Journal of the American Medical Association 237:791–92 (1977); Novick L.F. , Health Status of the New York City Prison Population, Medical Care 15:204–16 (1977); Stead W.W. , Undetected Tuberculosis in Prison, Journal of the American Medical Association 240:2544–47 (1978).

See Novick L.F. Remmlinger E. , A Study of 128 Deaths in New York City Correctional Facilities (1971–1976): Implications for Prisoner Health Care, Medical Care 16:749–56 (1978).

Goldsmith S.B. , The Status of Prison Health Care: A Review of the Literature, Public Health Reports 89:569–75 (1974); Goldsmith S.B. , Prison Health: Travesty of Justice (Prodist, New York, NY) (1975); Jervis N. , Prison Health Reform: Four Case Studies (Health Policy Advisory Center, New York, NY) (1975).

Manual of Correctional Standards (American Correctional Association, Rockville, MD) (1977).

Standards for Health Services in Correctional Institutions (American Public Health Association, Washington, D.C.) (1976).

Report on the 1972 AMA Survey of U.S. Jail Systems (American Medical Association, Chicago, IL) (1973); Standards for Health Services in Prisons, Revised edition (American Medical Association, Chicago, IL) (1979).

Medical and Health Care in Jails. Prisons and Other Correctional Facilities (American Bar Association, American Medical Association, Washington, DC) (1974); Medical and Health Care in Jails, Prisons and Other Correctional Facilities: A Compilation of Standards and Materials (American Bar Association, Washington, DC) (1973).

Dubler N.N. , Legal Issues in Corrections, Proceedings of the 3rd National Conference on Medical Care and Health Services in Correctional Institutions (American Medical Association, Chicago, IL) (1979), at 68.

Brecher E.M. Dellapenna R. D. , Health Care in Correctional Institutions (American Correctional Association, College Park, MD) (1975).

Sissons P.L. , The Place of Medicine in the American Prison: Ethical Issues in the Treatment of Offenders, Journal of Medical Ethics 2:173–79 (1976).

Comment, The Rights of Prisoners to Medical Care and the Implications for Drug-Dependent Prisoners and Pre-trial Detainees, University of Chicago Law Review 42(4):705, 707–09 (1975).

See Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 404–06 (1974) (class action brought by prisoners to protest mail censorship and qualified ban on interviews with law students and paralegals; federal court considered these incidental restrictions on free speech, and permissible given state interest).

See Campbell v. Beto, 460 F.2d 765, 767–68 (5th Cir. 1972) (qualifying that courts should “be ever vigilant to assure that the conditions of incarceration do not overstep the bounds of federal constitutional limitations”); Newman v. Alabama, 503 F.2d 1320, 1328–29 (5th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 948 (1975); Battle v. Anderson, 564 F.2d 388, 392–93 (10th Cir. 1977).

Cooper v. Pate, 378 U.S. 546 (1964).

42 U.S.C. §1983 provides: “Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress….”

Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 183 (1961); Wilwording v. Swenson, 404 U.S. 249, 251–52 (1971) (prisoner's complaints relating to conditions of confinement, in petition for habeus corpus, treated as claim for relief under §1983, to which exhaustion requirements not applicable). But see Huffman v. Pursue, 420 U.S. 592, 609 (1975) (requiring exhaustion of state appellate remedies where state litigation was pending at time of federal suit; but state remedy need not be sought and refused before federal remedy can be invoked).

See Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 667 (1962) (state law compelling imprisonment for criminal “status” of drug addiction, without proof of use of narcotics within the state or of anti-social behavior, held to inflict cruel and unusual punishment even for ninety-day sentence).

Granucci A.F. , “Nor Cruel and Unusual Punishments Inflicted:” The Original Meaning, California Law Review 57:839, 842, 844 (1969).

Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 100–101 (1958).

Comment, Inadequate Medical Treatment of State Prisoners: Cruel and Unusual Punishment? American University Law Review 27(1):92, 93–95 (Fall 1977).

Spicerv. Williamson, 132 S.E. 291, 293 (N.C. 1926) (Board of County Commissioners found to have duty to provide necessary medical care for prisoner in custody of sheriff, in suit to recover unpaid medical expenses).

Coleman v. Johnston, 247 F.2d 273, 275 (7th Cir. 1957).

443 F.2d 921 (2d Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 401 U.S. 983 (1971).

Id. at 923–24.

Church v. Hegstrom, 416 F.2d 449, 451 (2d Cir. 1969) (“mere negligence in giving or failing to provide medical treatment alone will not suffice”).

U.S. ex rel. Hyde v. McGinnis, 429 F.2d 864, 868 (2d Cir. 1970) (physician's actions at most rising to no more than mere negligence).

Williams v. Vincent, 508 F.2d 541, 544–45 (2d Cir. 1974).

Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976).

Gamble v. Estelle, 516 F.2d 937, 938–40 (5th Cir. 1975).

Estelle v. Gamble, supra note 29, at 107.

Id. at 104–05.

Turner W.B. , When Prisoners Sue: A Study of Prisoner Section 1983 Suits in the Federal Courts, Harvard Law Review 92:610, 662 (1979).

Holt v. Sarver, 309 F.Supp. 362, 364 (E.D. Ark. 1970), aff'd, 442 F.2d 304 (8th Cir. 1971).

Id. at 372–73.

Newman v. Alabama, 349 F.Supp. 278 (M.D. Ala. 1972), aff'd in part, 503 F.2d 1320 (5th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 948 (1975).

Id. at 283–86.

Id. at 285–86.

Todaro v. Ward, 565 F.2d 48, 53 (2d Cir. 1977), affirming 431 F.Supp. 1129 (S.D. N.Y. 1977).

Id. at 50–51.

Ramos v. Lamm, 485 F.Supp. 122, 142–47 (D.Colo. 1979).

Lightfoot v. Walker, 486 F.Supp. 504, 512, 514–15 (S.D. Ill. 1980).

See, e.g., Holt v. Sarver, supra note 34.

Pugh v. Locke, 406 F.Supp. 318 (M.D. Ala. 1976), aff'd as modified sub nom. Newman v. Alabama, 559 F.2d 283 (5th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 438 U.S. 915 (1978); Lightfoot v. Walker, supra note 42, at 526–29.

Medical and Health Care in Jails, Prisons and Other Correctional Facilities (American Bar Association, Committee on Correctional Facilities and Legal Services) (1974) at 7, 16, 19.

Todaro v. Ward, supra note 39, at 1138; Palmigiano v. Garrahy, 443 F.Supp. 956, 961, n.2 (D.R.I. 1977), remanded in 599 F.2d 17 (1st Cir. 1979).

Robbins I.P. Buser M.B. , Punitive Conditions of Prison Confinement: An Analysis of Pugh v. Locke and Federal Court Supervision of State Penal Administration Under the Eighth Amendment, Stanford Law Review 29:893, 926–30 (May 1977).

Ramsey v. Ciccone, 310 F.Supp. 600, 605 (W.D.Mo. 1970).

Estelle v. Gamble, supra note 29, at 116.

Mayfield v. Craven, 299 F.Supp. 1111, 1113 (E.D. Cal. 1969), aff'd 433 F.2d 873 (9th Cir. 1970); Freeman v. Lockhart, 503 F.2d 1016, 1017 (8th Cir. 1974).