THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 28, 1994 TAG: 9412280418
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
Three deputy court clerks and two law clerks at the U.S. District Court in Roanoke spend all their time dealing with civil suits filed by state and local prisoners.
Nearly 70 percent of the civil suits filed in the Roanoke federal court are filed by inmates. The bulk of the suits are ruled frivolous and dismissed after costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Mark A. Fountain, serving a five-year sentence for cocaine possession, filed a federal lawsuit in September claiming that he was subjected to cruel and unusual living conditions at the Dillwyn Correctional Unit because the prison did not have a food-warmer.
According to the suit, the lack of a food-warmer meant that meals arrived at prisoners' cell at different temperatures, depending on the distance between the kitchen and their cells.
His suit was dismissed.
``Most of the cases are frivolous,'' U.S. Magistrate Glen Conrad said. ``While the inmates may be serious about their claim, they don't understand what it takes to reach the level of constitutional violation.''
Prisoners filed 1,470 civil rights lawsuits in Virginia last year, compared with 1,189 in North Carolina and 1,004 in Tennessee.
In his 18 years on the federal bench, Conrad has seen a number of bizarre filings. One inmate sued because there were no raisins in his rice pudding.
``It's interesting. You think you have seen them all, then something else comes in,'' he said.
``You can count on two hands the number of favorable decisions given to inmates in any given year,'' Conrad said.
Nationally, more than 95 percent are dismissed before they get to trial; and of those that remain, only a few are decided in favor of the prisoner.
A 1961 U.S. Supreme Court case involving police abuse opened the floodgates on federal civil rights complaints. Although it didn't deal directly with prisoners, Monroe vs. Pape gave individuals direct access to the federal courts and broadened the scope of claims that could be made agaist government officials.
Since then, numerous civil rights rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court forced prisons to provide better medical treatment to inmates, increase access to legal materials and improve disciplinary methods.
Inmates in southwestern Virginia won a victory in 1977 when a federal judge ruled that conditions at Bland Correctional Center violated their constitutional rights. Judge Glen Williams ordered the jailers to stop using drugs as a method to control behavior, to construct a hospital facility and to establish a law library.
Prisons' law libraries are where most of the suits originate.
Inmate Michael Fulcher is the head clerk of the law library at the Bland prison. He, too, gets irritated when he sees fellow inmates filing silly lawsuits.
``All these inmates filing these frivolous cases are messing it up for the rest of us,'' he said. ``Because of them, the legitimate complaints won't be taken as seriously.''
Frank Altizer, a 48-year-old prisoner at Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Buchanan County, has filed 90 lawsuits since 1973, when he was sentenced to two life terms plus 10 years for abduction and sexual molestation.
Altizer's suits have ranged from jail conditions to inadequate medical treatment to retaliation by prison officials for his litigious nature. All of the suits have been dismissed before going to trial.
In a telephone interview from Keen Mountain, Altizer said he has no plans to stop filing litigation.
``That's part of the game, isn't it?'' he said.
Alan Katz, a senior assistant attorney general in charge of the state's prisoner litigation section, said the attorney general's office has eight attorneys, four legal assistants and three secretaries who defend the cases filed against the state.
In 1993, the state's attorneys worked 18,599 hours on prisoner litigation, including death-penalty appeals and other criminal cases. At $100 an hour, a low rate for an attorney, that's a cost of $1.8 million. That doesn't include legal assistants' or secretaries' time.
Even though most of the suits have no merit, Conrad doesn't think most prisoners are purposely trying to burden the system.
KEYWORDS: JAILHOUSE LAWYER PRISONER LAWSUIT by CNB