Sharkey v O'Neal

2-15-15 California:

Sharkey v O'Neal
Dennis Sharkey appeals from an order of the district court dismissing as time-barred his claims under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and various provisions of the Constitution pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district judge applied California's two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims to all of Sharkey's claims. With respect to Sharkey's claim under Title II of the ADA, we hold that the district court did not apply the correct statute of limitations.

District courts must borrow the three-year limitations period applicable to claims under California Government Code § 11135, rather than the limitations period applicable to personal injury claims in California. Under this three-year limitations period, Sharkey's ADA claim is not time-barred. With respect to his other claims, Sharkey does not contest the applicable limitations periods, but we hold that the district court abused its discretion in dismissing the complaint with prejudice without affording Sharkey leave to amend.

BACKGROUND

Sharkey is a 55–year–old man with disabilities that require him to use a wheelchair and two canes. In late 2006 and early 2007, Defendants Graham, Foster, O'Neal, and Sydney were employees at the Parole Division of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in Berkeley.

In 2006, Sharkey was on parole, living independently in an accessible apartment in Oakland. On December 28, 2006, Agent Foster informed Sharkey of new parole terms, including a housing restriction imposed under the California Sexual Predator and Control Act (Prop 83) that required Sharkey to move from his Oakland residence. Agent O'Neal, who Agent Foster had assigned to Sharkey's case, gave Sharkey only an hour to relocate and only 25 minutes to pack, notwithstanding his disability. Sharkey experienced a great deal of pain during this harried move, and, due to the time pressure, left behind important medical supplies and personal possessions. Agent O'Neal forbade Sharkey from ever returning to the apartment or from calling friends to retrieve his remaining belongings.

That night, Agent O'Neal drove Sharkey to the Harris Motel and assigned him to a room that lacked the safety features necessary to accommodate his disability, such as a wheelchair-accessible entrance, sufficient floor space to operate a wheelchair, and bathroom grab bars. When Sharkey complained to Agent Foster, no attempt was made to locate a suitable residence.

Aging Prisoners Shackle State Budgets

11-10-2014 California:

The nation’s graying prison population will strain the corrections system. There are ways to keep costs down, but they’re not often used.

Nearly 10 percent of inmates housed in California state prisons were age 50 or older in 2003. About a decade later, that percentage has doubled. Thanks to an aging prison population and a 2011 prison realignment bill that sent lower-level and typically younger offenders to county jails, about 21 percent of the total state prison population today is over age 50.

While the circumstances in California are unique, the predicament is not. As baby boomers age nationally, America’s prison population is graying. What’s less understood, though, is the full extent of the demands an older prison population will place on corrections systems and just how much it will end up costing.

Screaming Inmates Make L.A. Rethink Jailing Mentally Ill

9-26-2014 California:

Inmates in suicide-proof gowns scream and bang on their cell doors one floor below Terri McDonald’s office in the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. The bedlam is a reminder, if she needs one, that the mentally ill population in the largest U.S. jail system is out of control.

It’s a “shameful social and public-safety issue,” said McDonald, the assistant sheriff who runs Los Angeles County’s jails. “I believe we can do better. I believe at some point in the future we’ll look back and wonder, ‘What took so long?’”

That’s been a question for years. Conditions for mentally ill inmates in the county have been a focus of federal probes since 1997, and the number with psychiatric disorders was an issue in a recent debate over a new jail. Keeping a mentally ill person behind bars can cost more than $50,000 annually, while treatment could run two-thirds less. Criminal justice systems from Seattle to Miami with aggressive jail-diversion efforts have cut inmate headcounts -- and lowered recidivism rates.

L.A. County has taken tentative steps to join them. The board of supervisors in July endorsed the concept of broadbased diversion, and last week pledged $756,000 for a pilot program.

Child Sex Abuser Profits by Suing 1,000 Firms Under Disability Act

12-4-2013 California:

In 2012, Jon Carpenter filed 257 lawsuits in L.A. County — more lawsuits than there were court days — under the Americans With Disabilities Act, a civil rights law intended to give disabled people the same access to places that everyone has.

The spree left small businesses all over the Southland scratching their heads. What was this law? And who was Carpenter?

A basic records search by L.A. Weekly shows that 2012 was a prolific but not atypical year — the 47-year-old quadriplegic has filed nearly 1,000 lawsuits in L.A. County alone, and is believed to have reaped a sizable but unknown amount of cash.

But now, lawyers representing businesses sued by Carpenter have unearthed the man's sordid past: He is a convicted child molester from Utah, who was set free after serving less than two days of a one- to- 15-year sentence.

How he got out of jail made the lawyers' skin prickle.

Stephen Abraham, a defense attorney representing restaurants and others Carpenter sues, says, "He's a destructive contradiction. This is someone for whom the law only goes one way — his way."

Documents obtained by the Weekly show that in the 1980s, Carpenter was arrested on multiple counts of aggravated sexual abuse and charged with molesting two 8-year-old girls. His victims tell the Weekly that Carpenter, then 24, was a Sunday school teacher at a Mormon church in Provo County.

"He had sexually abused several kids," Sharon Davis of Salt Lake City alleges. "I do know [about] other kids. It happened to me."

CA- Disabled inmates subjected to shocking conditions in Los Angeles County jails, advocates say

Issue: Jail Conditions If Arrested

5-29-2008 California:

Report by the ACLU and the Disability Rights Legal Center finds dreary, overcrowded cells, a lack of accessible bathroom facilities and limited access to recreation opportunities.

For several hours, as he waited to get booked for petty theft at the Los Angeles County Jail in October, Peter Johnson told deputies he needed to go to the restroom.

Although other inmates were free to use the facilities, Johnson -- a paraplegic -- was told there were none in the area equipped to accommodate the physically disabled. Guards, he said, seemed indifferent to his plight, telling him he simply had to wait.

"We are treated like the worst of the worst because of our disabilities," said Johnson, who ultimately lost control of his bowels and was forced to sit in his own feces for more than six hours.

Johnson, who is still incarcerated, and more than a dozen other disabled inmates complain that the county jail system, by design, discriminates against them.

Simple tasks like taking a shower, getting onto a bunk or using the lavatory become impossible.

A recent study commissioned by the Disability Rights Legal Center and American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California found severe problems with how disabled inmates are treated. The report concluded that the Sheriff's Department was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities.

Lawyers for the two groups say they plan to file a lawsuit against the county today that would seek a court order requiring that the jails to comply with anti-discrimination laws.

Logan Hopper, an expert on ADA requirements who conducted the study for the ACLU and disability rights center, reported that during his three-day inspection of the jails he found disabled inmates struggling to overcome physical barriers to toilets, shower stalls and visitor areas.

In his 31-page report, he said the housing areas for disabled inmates had broken plumbing, lacked natural light and had limited access to recreational areas.

"These were the most overcrowded, dreariest and poorest maintained rooms or cells observed," he wrote.

Hopper also said the problems extended beyond poorly equipped facilities. Inmates with disabilities are often precluded from educational and job training programs because those are held in parts of the jail system they cannot access, he said.

Also, Hopper reported that jailers failed to properly classify inmates as having disabilities. Some paralyzed inmates said in sworn declarations that their wheelchairs were confiscated, forcing them to use crutches or crawl around in their cells.

"This is some of the most shocking stuff we've seen. There are clear human rights issues here," said Shawna Parks, an attorney for the disability rights center. "This is a systemic problem beyond the fact that the toilet is inaccessible. It is shameful that people with disabilities are being punished doubly because they have disabilities."

Sheriff's officials say they have met with lawyers for disabled inmates and are trying to address their concerns. "We don't have a magic wand we can wave to fix it all," said Sheriff Lee Baca, who added that many of the jails were designed 50 years ago, before the courts and lawmakers saw the need to accommodate inmates with disabilities.

Baca said disabled inmates are now housed in Twin Towers and in the old medical wing of the Men's Central Jail, which he said was a far less crowded and better place than general lockdown.

He said he hoped to eventually close Men's Central Jail and build newer, better equipped, facilities in Lancaster, Castaic and near East L.A.

Baca said his jails have more disabled inmates than ever because more people with disabilities are committing serious crimes.

"We do, quite frankly, the best we can. But we can do better," he said. "The ACLU is wonderful at presenting our problems but never comes up with any solutions."

Baca said he believes that the courts should try to assign severely disabled inmates to home detention.

"It costs us $700 to $800 a day to keep them in the jail," Baca said.

The sheriff said he also would consider allowing care workers for the most severely disabled into the jails.

ACLU officials said the Sheriff's Department is in a position to address many of the obstacles that disabled inmates face.

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, said that inmates in their declarations gave vivid and frightening accounts of the deplorable conditions in the jail. ..News Source.. by Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer