Oregon Department of Corrections staff fabricated evidence and unlawfully used solitary confinement in order to punish two inmates without due process, claims a lawsuit filed Friday morning in federal court on the inmates’ behalf.

Representing the inmates are Portland-based civil rights attorney Juan Chavez, who sits on the advisory committee to Oregon Justice Resource Center and on the Executive Board of the Portland National Lawyers Guild, and criminal defense lawyer Crystal Maloney.

The plaintiffs, inmates Shane Staggs, 32, and Rafael Mora-Contreras, 37, were featured this past August in a Street Roots’ report on the use of solitary confinement at Oregon State Penitentiary, a state-run maximum-security prison in Salem.

Both men, who were not affiliated with each other, were employed within the prison and in good standing when they were placed in solitary confinement for extended periods while under investigation for separate nonviolent infractions.

The complaint being filed in their case mirrors allegations outlined in Street Roots coverage, which revealed a pattern of bad practices at Oregon State Penitentiary with regard to its use of solitary confinement and the internal investigations into inmate misconduct that lands prisoners in it. Specifically, accusations of coercion and abuse of power directed mainly at one individual in the department’s Special Investigations Unit: Lt. Douglas Yancey. Street Roots originally withheld Yancey’s name. Oregon DOC Director Colette Peters, Inspector General Craig Prins, Officer Jerry Plante and several other corrections staff are also named in the lawsuit.

Both plaintiffs and other inmates involved in the case allege Yancey attempted to bribe and coerce inmates into submitting false testimony against the plaintiffs and retaliated against inmates by placing them in solitary confinement.

“I think this makes a strong case to show that a correctional officer shouldn’t be trusted with this specific tool because it will be abused,” Chavez said.

The case also alleges the large-scale riot at Oregon State Penitentiary involving 200 inmates in 2016 was the result of Yancey telling a group of gang members that another inmate was a “snitch” after that inmate refused to provide him with false information.

While the suit seeks economic, non-economic and punitive damages, “what my clients are primarily concerned with is accountability,” Chavez said. “They lived this day in and day out, and they want to feel like they’re making a change in their environment and aren’t voiceless in this whole thing.”

“I just want to see some justice served for once,” Staggs told Street Roots during a phone call from Snake River Correctional Institution, located in Ontario. While he is far from friends and family, he said as much as he would love to be transferred back to Oregon State Penitentiary. “I’m scared of becoming a target.”

He was convicted of second-degree robbery and kidnapping in 2009 and is set to be released in 2026.

Mora-Contreras is currently 15 years into a life sentence for murder. However, in light of new judicial findings, he has been granted a retrial in Washington County.

“If he is in fact exonerated by a jury or by the state,” Chavez said, “then all of that torture he went through was incredibly unwarranted.”

The suit claims both men suffered emotionally, physically and economically – due to lost wages – as a result of their stay in solitary confinement.

“If you don’t have a strong mind,” Staggs said, “you’ll go crazy.”

FURTHER READING: Shane Staggs' story: Solitary confinement in an inmate's words

Mora-Contreras began to suffer from auditory hallucinations while in solitary, according to the lawsuit, and both men lost significant weight and suffered from anxiety and severe distress.

In Oregon, solitary confinement means spending 23 hours each day in a 6-foot by 10-foot cell with no natural light, access to outdoors and limited opportunities to speak with people, according to court documents.

Chavez’s lawsuit comes on the heels of a Disability Rights Oregon report finding that at the same facility, Oregon State Penitentiary, employees are failing to make progress on a pledge to allow inmates with severe mental health issues out of their cells more frequently in the Behavioral Health Unit where they reside. While some improvements have been made, in many ways this unit is another form of solitary confinement.

The use of solitary confinement against Mora-Contreras and Staggs, the lawsuit claims, is a violation of their Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, as well as a violation of their Fifth Amendment rights of due process and First Amendment rights to be free from compelled speech and retaliation.

The suite also claims the state violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment on the grounds that it places people of color in solitary confinement at a higher rate than other inmates.

In March, Mora-Contreras filed two other lawsuits claiming constitutional rights violations against various DOC employees at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, however he has not retained counsel to represent him on either of those cases.

Historically, solitary confinement cases claiming cruel and unusual punishment have failed, but decisions issued two months ago are beginning to change that precedent.

“Supreme Court precedent says how we judge what’s cruel and what’s unusual is based on an evolving standard of decency,” Chavez said.

On Feb. 21 in Virginia, a federal judge ruled it was cruel and unusual to confine death row prisoners to solitary confinement. Chavez pointed out that decision was partially based on growing evidence that shows solitary confinement is psychologically and physically harmful.

“We know more about the abuse that it creates and the trauma that stems from it,” he said.

In her decision, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema stated that “given the rapidly evolving information available about the potential harmful effects of solitary confinement,” her decision was not bound by the “decades-old determinations” on which defendants in solitary confinement cases typically rely.

Also in February, a federal court judge in Pennsylvania granted an injunction to release death-row inmate Darrick Hall from solitary confinement, where he had been held for the past 24 years, despite his death sentence being vacated in 2014. In this case, the judge ruled the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections violated the inmate’s 14th Amendment due process rights.

Much of Chavez’s case, however, relies on inmate testimony, which he said could be difficult.

“But I think the public is coming to understand that we shouldn’t confuse power with credibility,” he said. “Having a badge doesn’t mean you get a pass at accountability. The paper trail here supports my clients’ stories and theories of this case."

Email Senior Staff Reporter Emily Green at emily@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @greenwrites.

Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots