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1. More habeas corpus applications from prisoners

Two prisoners at the Burnside jail have filed habeas corpus applications with the court.

Codie Horne and Michael Saulnier say that they were put naked into segregation units on June 23, and for 40 minutes were monitored by a female guard. Horne says he was left in segregation for two days without a mattress and without a shower. Saulnier says his cell is unsanitary, polluted with “fecal matter.”

In his application to the court, Horne says he was brought to segregation because guard authorities suspected he was hiding a weapon. But both men say they were cleared to be returned to the jail’s common dayroom (where they would be able to interact with other prisoners) the very next day, but were kept in isolation.

The men filed their applications on Thursday, June 30. A court staffer appended a note on Horne’s application saying that as of noon yesterday — 11 days after being put in segregation — he was still in isolation.

In December, Dylan Gogan and Dylan Roach successfully petitioned the court to overturn an arbitrary jail practice of placing federal prisoners in solitary confinement for weeks at a time for no disciplinary reasons whatsoever. In his ruling, Justice Gerald Moir noted that:

They are confined to their cells in Burnside twenty-three hours a day. This is not because they are being disciplined. This is not because they need protection. This is not because they need to be investigated for classification. Mr. Gogan and Mr. Roach are confined twenty-three hours a day for reasons that have nothing to do with them as individuals. […] Mr. Gogan described the cell in which he is locked alone for twenty-three hours a day. It is about seven by nine feet. There is a set of bunks but only one mattress. He has a stool and a toilet. That is it. Mr. Roach’s conditions are similar except his is a single bed, there is no bench, and the room is equipped for a person with mobility problems. Mr. Roach is not such a person. […] To lock a man alone in a cell for twenty-three hours a day is not merely to deprive him of the common room. It is to deprive him of social interaction, of the simplest personal amusements such as cards or television, of the most rudimentary activities that keep us sane. “[S]olitary confinement (or segregation) for a prolonged period of time can have damaging psychological effects on an inmate …” [citing an Ontario court ruling] […] Let me return for a moment to the facts of Mr. Gogan’s and Mr. Roach’s confinement. They spend twenty-three hours a day in a nine by seven feet cell with a bed, a mattress, a window, maybe a stool or a bench, and no other amenities. The one hour exception is for showers, any visitors, and a little time in the common room with little or no social interaction. Mr. Gogan put it mildly when he said “it’s certainly hard on your mind.”

Ever since Gogan and Roach’s successful application, prisoners at Burnside have been following suit. In May, 13 prisoners filed a habeas corpus appeal with the court, alleging that a week-long lockdown in the jail amounted to punishment without due legal process.

“They are not charged with any infractions, yet persist to be detained without lawful reason,” prisoner Joseph Zinck wrote in his hand-written appeal to the court.

In response to the 13 petitions, Justice Jamie Campbell ordered a telephone call to hear the matter, but by the call was scheduled, the lockdown had been ended, and so the matter was dropped.

In the current cases of Horne and Saulnier, Justice Campbell has likewise ordered an “on-the record” telephone call to hear the matter “some time this week, and that earlier would be preferred.” It’s my guess that the prisoners will be released from solitary by the time of the call.

It appears the Burnside jail is so overcrowded and the facility so underfunded and understaffed that administrators are throwing prisoners into solitary confinement essentially as an administrative means to keep order. Increasingly, solitary confinement, especially solitary confinement that extends beyond a day or two, is understood as torture. The prisoners are right to object, and they evidently feel their only recourse is to appeal to the courts.

2. Hunger