Lawsuit tossed alleging rape of juveniles in adult prisons

LANSING — The Michigan Court of Appeals has dismissed a lawsuit brought on behalf of seven current and former Michigan prison inmates who alleged they were sexually assaulted as juveniles while housed with adults in the state's prisons.

The court, in a 2-1 decision released Wednesday, dismissed the case because of what it said was a fatal technical shortfall in the lawsuit. But the court also analyzed the legal basis of the lawsuit and said it failed there, too. Both rulings overturned earlier findings by the Washtenaw County Circuit Court.

The appeals court said the plaintiffs — who are identified in the suit only as unnamed "John Does" — failed to comply with the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act by disclosing the number of civil actions and appeals the prisoners previously initiated. State law says prisoner lawsuits that fail to do that "shall" be dismissed, rather than amended to comply with the law, and "we apply the statute as written and find that dismissal is mandated," said Judges Michael Riordan and Pat Donofrio in the majority opinion.

The Michigan Department of Corrections applauded the ruling. The lawyer representing the inmates said Wednesday that she will appeal the "disturbing" ruling to the Michigan Supreme Court.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the prisoners' rights under the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, but the appeals court said a 1999 amendment the Legislature made to the state civil rights law explicitly said the law does not apply to prisons.

The plaintiffs argued that amendment was unconstitutional because it denies prisoners equal protection under the law, and cited a 2007 federal court case, Mason v. Granholm, in which the judge ruled the 1999 amendment was unconstitutional.

But the court rejected the arguments and said the federal ruling is not binding on state courts.

"Because the 1999 amendment is rationally related to the legitimate interests of deterring frivolous lawsuits and preserving scarce public resources, we hold that the amendment passes the rational basis test and is constitutional," the court said.

The court said that prisoners don't seek out public services covered by the civil rights law in the way members of the general public do, but "are compelled to be there, and must be content, for the most part, with the services provided."

Deborah LaBelle, an Ann Arbor attorney representing what are now 16 current and former inmates in an amended complaint, said "the state's position that the children under their care should not be protected under the state's civil rights act is what's really disturbing." She said the state should not be able to "carve out people" who are and are not entitled to civil rights protections.

The court said some of the former inmates' claims could be pursued in federal court, where a companion case is pending.

The federal case, before U.S. District Judge Robert H. Cleland in Detroit, alleges violation of constitutional rights to equal protection, due process and privacy, among others.

Chris Gautz, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said the department is thankful for the state appeals court decision and "hopes this case will come to a swift end" because it has been defended "at a great cost to the taxpayers."

The department takes the allegations very seriously, but "it’s been our position that the allegation that rampant sexual abuse was taking place in our prisons is false," Gautz said. "We have provided more than a half million pages of documents and more than 500 videos as part of the discovery process, which have not provided support for the allegations."

Judge Jane Beckering issued a dissent, saying she agreed based on legal precedent that the case must be dismissed on technical grounds, but the Legislature's 1999 amendment to the state civil rights law was unconstitutional because it violated the 1963 state constitutional requirement to "protect the civil rights of all persons."

The lawsuit, brought in 2013 in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, named the Michigan Department of Corrections, the governor, and several prison officials and wardens as defendants. It alleged the juvenile inmates were subjected to sexual violence by adult inmates and sexual harassment by female correctional officers.

Each of the John Does allege specific incidents of rape, beatings or harassment. In some cases, they say, prison officials were aware they were being raped in their cells but did nothing to stop the assaults. In other incidents, they said, female corrections officers sexually harassed them or groped them during searches.

The Department of Corrections says it has always kept inmates 16 and younger who were sentenced as adults separated from adult inmates and says it stopped housing 17-year-olds with the adult population in August of 2013.

LaBelle said it will be up to the trial court to determine whether the Court of Appeals ruling applies to only the seven original John Doe plaintiffs or all 16 who are now part of the case.

An earlier case LaBelle handled, related to sexual abuse of female inmates in Michigan prisons, began in Washtenaw County Circuit Court in 1996 and ended with a $100-million settlement 13 years later. The state agreed to six payments over five years.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.