RI ACLU Files Lawsuit Challenging Statute That Calls Inmates Serving Life Sentences “Civilly Dead”

The Rhode Island ACLU has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a statute that says inmates who are serving life sentences at the ACI be “dead in all respects” with respect to “all civil rights.”

“Interpreted literally, the statute would allow prison officials to waterboard an inmate serving a life sentence, and leave the inmate with no legal recourse. The irony of the statute is that a person who is sentenced to life imprisonment – and thus legally dead – may be eligible for parole after 20 or 25 years, while a person who is instead sentenced to confinement for 99 years, and not eligible for parole for a longer period of time, retains their civil rights under the law. The statute is archaic, irrational and unjustifable,” said ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown.

The Lawsuit

The lawsuit is on behalf of two ACI inmates who are barred from pursuing legal actions against the Department of Corrections in court because of the “civil death” law.

The lawsuit seeks a court order declaring the civil death law unconstitutional on a number of grounds, including as a violation of inmates’ First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

According to the ACLU, one of the plaintiffs, James Lombardi, is barred by the statute from suing the DOC after he cut himself in his cell on a footlocker that he claims the Department knew was hazardous.

The other plaintiff, Joshua Davis, claims that a DOC nurse recklessly exposed him to blood-borne pathogens by administering insulin from a contaminated vial of medication, but the civil death statute bars him from bringing claims alleging medical negligence or other violations of his rights.

In 2015, the ACLU challenged the statute as it applied to bar inmates serving life sentences from marrying, but the court, in that case, said that a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court summary affirmance, without a written opinion, of a federal court decision upholding a New York statute that barred inmates sentenced to life imprisonment from marrying applied.

According to the ACLU, the key portion of the state law being challenged reads: “Every person imprisoned in the adult correctional institutions for life shall, with respect to all rights of property, to the bond of matrimony and to all civil rights and relations of any nature whatsoever, be deemed to be dead in all respects, as if his or her natural death had taken place at the time of conviction.”

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