“I spoke out against conditions at the ACI and I was punished with almost eight months in solitary confinement. He experienced delays in medical care and was restricted from doing necessary exercises. He is permanently disabled after being shot in the spine and lungs at age 15, leaving his mobility impaired and his bladder and digestive functions vulnerable and in need of constant oversight and care, he said.Īt one point, Shepard got a urinary tract infection after being forced to catheterize himself in a cell whose toilet would overflow with feces every time his neighbor flushed, the suit says. As a result, he said, his physical and mental health deteriorated. Shepard alleges that he spent close to eight months in solitary confinement due to retaliation, during which he was confined at least 21 hours a day despite administrators’ awareness that segregation was contraindicated due to disabilities. Shepard was finally reclassified to medium security in October 2019, after being granted parole. Shepard had two more classification hearings during which the board voted to send him back to medium, but Amado overrode both decisions in order to keep him in high security, the suit said. There, he was housed in the same cell block as an individual who testified against him in his criminal proceeding and who was serving a life sentence for murdering his friend, according to the suit. Rhode Island prisons: 32-hour shifts are becoming more common among officers at the short-staffed ACIĪ classification board recommended that Shepard be transferred back to medium, but Amado overrode the decision and instead ordered Shepard sent to high security. He was given 20 days of disciplinary confinement and docked 20 days of good time, but was held in segregation until he was transferred to high security in May. Shepard was found guilty of possessing the documents. 22, 2019, and wasn’t informed until two weeks later that he received the booking for “mutinous acts,” namely being in possession of documents that, he said, had never been previously identified as contraband.Ĭorrections officials failed to call the witness he requested at his disciplinary hearing and refused to inform him of the evidence against him based on grounds that it was “confidential,” he claimed. More: Solitary confinement: A key part of the RI prison system or 'inhuman and cruel' – all in their individual and official capacities. Moran Medium Security Facility Linda Amado, associate director of classification services at the prison and investigator Joseph Forgue Jr. In addition to Coyne-Fague, Shepard named as defendants Rui Diniz, deputy warden of the John J. RIDOC CAREERS FREEHe is asking the court to find that they violated his constitutional right to free speech by retaliating against him, and his right to equal protection under the law by punishing him disproportionately from other inmates, as well as his right to due process by failing to call a requested witness during a disciplinary hearing. Shepard is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction barring corrections officials from further retaliation. The Rhode Island Center for Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island on Monday sued Corrections Director Patricia Coyne-Fague and other prison administrators in federal court on behalf of Joseph Shepard. PROVIDENCE - A 28-year-old Providence man is charging that the state Department of Corrections violated his rights by holding him for 237 days in segregation as retaliation for his complaints about conditions at the Adult Correctional Institutions.
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