ANN IMSE Scripps Howard News Service | Posted: Thursday, July 27, 2006 12:00 am
DENVER - An inmate was shackled to a chair for five and a half days without exercise or sleep at the Colorado state prison because officials suspected him of swallowing bags of heroin and wanted to collect the evidence.
Lights in the room were never turned off, and inmate Brian Willert, 29, was strip-searched and cavity-searched 17 times, even though a guard sat a few feet away watching him constantly.
Chaffee County District Court Judge Charles M. Barton threw out the evidence - which Willert eventually managed to produce - ruling that it resulted from an unreasonable search. He said prison officials could have accomplished the same thing in a few hours by obtaining a court order to administer a laxative.
"Forcing a shackled inmate to sit in a chair for over five days posed, in the court's opinion, an unreasonable risk to the life and health of the inmate," Barton said in his July 14 ruling. The judge said prison officials failed to check on Willert's health after he tested positive for methamphetamine on the fourth day, indicating a balloon containing that drug might have burst inside, giving him an overwhelming dose.
"It is difficult for the court to imagine a more intrusive procedure," the judge wrote. "Defendant was watched every minute for over five days. He was not permitted to meet the basic human need to lie down and sleep."
The judge also questioned how the repeated strip searches of an inmate both shackled and watched could be related to security.
However, Barton declined to accept Public Defender Patrick Murphy's suggestion that he rule the treatment of Willert cruel and unusual punishment.
The incident occurred in June 2005 after officials at the prison in Buena Vista were told by Willert's girlfriend that she kissed him during a visit and passed into his mouth four balloons of what she thought was heroin. The drug turned out to be meth.
The tattooed Willert, serving his second prison sentence for drug use, was placed in one of the prison's two "dry cells," which have no sink or toilet. The idea was to watch him closely until he passed the evidence.
He was shackled to a chair with leg and belly chains and not allowed to lie down, the judge ruled. Lights in the 6-by-8-foot room were never turned off. He slept only occasionally for 20 minutes at a time, for a total of three hours over five and a half days, the judge found.
Some of what happened to Willert is standard procedure in the Colorado Department of Corrections. But Gary Golder, director of prisons, said the inspector general for the department is investigating to determine, "Did the staff violate the policies or do something inappropriate?"
Murphy, who won the ruling, said the state prisons frequently place inmates in dry cells to see if they have ingested balloons of drugs. "But usually, it's over within a day," he said.
Golder said he thought the dry-cell procedure is used rarely, less than once a month in the entire prison system.
Golder said he believed no prisoner had been injured as a result - although the judge said Willert suffered abrasions and swollen joints.