United States District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania
MEMORANDUM OPINION
KIM R.
GIBSON UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Before
the Court is Defendants' Motion to Dismiss for Failure to
State a Claim. (ECF No. 5.) This Motion is fully briefed
(see ECF Nos. 6, 21) and is ripe for disposition.
For the reasons that follow, Defendants' Motion is
GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN
PART.
I.
Background
Plaintiffs
Linda and Russell Shick filed a five-count Complaint against
Defendants on December 12, 2018. Plaintiffs are husband and
wife. (ECF No. 1 ¶¶ 4-5.) Defendants are the
Pennsylvania Department of Corrections ("DOC"),
Secretary of Corrections John E. Wetzel, SCI-Albion
Superintendent Michael R. Clark, and SCI-Albion hearing
officer Ryan Slewiski. (Id. ¶¶ 6-16.)
Plaintiffs
allege that Defendants:
(1) violated Linda Shick's right to procedural due
process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution
(id. ¶¶ 96-105);
(2) violated Linda Shick's Eighth Amendment rights by
permanently banning her from visiting her incarcerated
husband, Russell Shick (id. ¶¶ 106-08);
(3) violated Linda Shick's First Amendment rights by
prohibiting her from associating with her husband
(id. ¶¶ 109-11);
(4) violated Russell Shick's Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendment rights by depriving him of procedural due process
(id. ¶¶ 112-24);
(5) violated Russell Shick's Eighth Amendment rights by
depriving him of procedural due process and access his
wheelchair (id. ¶¶ 125-29); and
(6) violated Russell Shick's First, Sixth, and Fourteenth
Amendment rights to counsel by opening and scanning mail
containing privileged communications between Russell Shick
and his attorney. (Id. ¶¶ 130-39.)
The
Court derives the following facts, which it accepts as true
for purposes of deciding the instant Motion to Dismiss, from
Plaintiffs' Complaint.
A.
Linda Shick is Accused of Attempting to Smuggle Drugs Through
the Mail at SCI-Albion
On May
11, 2018, DOC officials at SCI-Albion confiscated a piece of
mail that Linda Shick sent to her husband, Russell Shick, who
is incarcerated at SCI-Albion. (Id. ¶¶
18-20.) DOC officials confiscated the mail and claimed that
it tested positive for the synthetic drug K-2. (Id.
¶¶ 21-25.)
Plaintiffs
maintain that Linda Shick did not attempt to send K-2 to
Russell Shick. (Id. ¶¶ 25, 42.) They
allege that DOC officials "either intentionally falsely
claimed that Mr. Shick's mail tested positive for K-2[, ]
that prison officials contaminated the relevant mail, or that
the test was a false positive." (Id. ¶
24.)
On May
15, 2018, DOC officials searched Mr. Shick's cell, but
did not uncover any contraband. (Id. ¶¶
27-28.)
B.
Russell Shick Files a Grievance About the Confiscation of His
Mail and Is Subsequently Moved to the Restricted Housing
Unit
On May
16, 2018, Russell Shick filed an inmate grievance complaining
about the confiscation of his mail. (Id. ¶ 29.)
He refiled his grievance on May 21, 2018, to include a copy
of the "confiscated item receipt" per DOC policy.
(Id. ¶¶ 30-32.) The DOC did not timely
respond to Mr. Shick's grievance, and requested an
extension of time to respond three days after the response
period had passed. (Id. ¶¶ 33.) Then, he
filed a Notice of Default requesting that the confiscated
mail be provided to his attorney. (Id. ¶ 34.)
On May
25, 2018, a DOC staff member interviewed Mr. Shick about the
confiscated mail. (Id. ¶¶ 36-37.) Mr.
Shick believed the interview was in connection with his
inmate grievance. (Id. ¶ 38.) At the interview,
Mr. Shick confirmed that the confiscated mail contained his
wife's handwriting. (Id. ¶ 39.) Then, DOC
staff took Mr. Shick to a holding cell, where he remained for
roughly six hours. (Id. ¶¶ 37, 43.)
When
DOC officials took Mr. Shick to the holding cell, they
confiscated his wheelchair, which he uses to deal with a hip
condition that requires surgery. (Id. ¶¶
43-44.) After approximately six hours in the holding cell,
DOC officials moved Mr. Shick to the Restricted Housing Unit
for "security reasons." (Id. ¶¶
45-49.)
C.
DOC Officials Hold Hearings on Russell Shick's Allegedly
Contaminated Mail and Respond to His Grievance
On May
26, 2018, Mr. Shick submitted a form-DC-141 Part
11(A)-requesting representation and listing eight staff
members as witnesses. (Id. ¶ 60.) Mr. Shick
also submitted a request for the DOC to identify the employee
who deemed Mrs. Shick's mail to be suspicious, but DOC
officials stated that they were not at liberty to provide
that information. (Id. ¶ 61.)
On May
29, 2018, Mrs. Schick appeared before the DOC Program Review
Committee to ask for his wheelchair to be returned, but his
wheelchair was not returned until June 12, 2018.
(Id. ¶¶ 63-65.) Plaintiffs allege that
"[i]n violation of DC-ADM 801, i.e. prison policy and
protocols, there was no commissioned officer on the [Program
Review Committee] panel that day." (Id. ¶
64.)
Then,
on May 30, 2018, DOC officials held a hearing on the
Shicks' allegedly contaminated mail in front of Hearing
Examiner Ryan Slewiski. (Id. ¶ 66.) Mr. Shick
was not permitted to present witnesses, present witness
statements, and the DOC did not produce laboratory results
showing that the mail was contaminated. (Id.
¶¶ 67-69.) Slewiski denied Mr. Shick's requests
to consult with his attorney, to be represented by an
attorney at the hearing, or to submit polygraph examinations
to support his defense. (Id. ¶¶ 69-74.)
Slewiski determined that Mr. Shick violated prison
regulations by possessing drug contraband and sentenced him
to sixty days of disciplinary custody. (Id.
¶¶ 77-78.)
On June
5, 2018, Mr. Shick was scheduled for a review of the Program
Review Committee's decision. (Id. ¶ 82.)
However, Mr. Shick was not transported to the hearing by DOC
staff, so he did not receive a review. (Id.)
On July
12, 2018, Mr. Shick received a response to his grievance
about the confiscation of his mail. (Id. ¶ 84.)
A DOC employee named Tamie White informed Mr. Shick that his
mail tested positive for K-2. (Id.) A misconduct
report indicated that the Shicks' mail was tested using a
NARK II Synthetic Cannabinoids drug-detection pouch, which
Plaintiffs allege is an unreliable method test method.
(Id. ¶¶ 85-89.)
Finally,
Mr. Shick also alleges that the DOC's mail policy
prohibits him from receiving privileged communications from
his attorney. (Id. ¶¶ 90-95.)
D.
DOC Officials Permanently Ban Linda Shick from Visiting
Russell Shick
On May
25, 2018, Superintendent Clark wrote a letter to Mrs. Shick
"that declared that she was permanently banned from
visiting Mr. Shick or any other state correctional facility
in Pennsylvania." (Id. ¶ 51.) Mrs. Shick
was not permitted to visit her husband at SCI-Albion on May
31, 2019. (Id. ¶ 52.)
Plaintiffs
allege that DOC policy authorizes indefinite suspensions of
visitation rights, but that it does not authorize permanent
bans. (Id. ¶¶ 54-57.) Plaintiffs also
allege that DOC policy requires that any person who
unlawfully introduced illegal drugs into a state correctional
facility must be referred for criminal prosecution, but that
Mrs. Shick was never referred for prosecution. (Id.
¶¶ 57-58.)
II.
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