Louisiana asks Fifth Circuit to ax heat restriction on prison farm labor

(CN) — The state of Louisiana asked a Fifth Circuit panel Wednesday to overturn a federal judge’s order requiring special protections for prisoners doing farm labor at the state’s notorious Angola prison when the temperature reaches a certain threshold.

Voice of the Experienced, an organization that advocates for the rights of incarcerated individuals, has brought a putative class action on behalf of men held at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, challenging the constitutionality of an agricultural labor program known as the Farm Line. The group claims prisoners working on the Farm Line are forced to labor in dangerous conditions for little to no pay on the grounds of what was once a slave plantation.

After the state raised the heat alert threshold — the apparent temperature at which Angola prison is required to implement certain protections for Farm Line workers like bringing heat sensitive prisoners indoors — from 88 degrees Fahrenheit to 91 degrees Fahrenheit, U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson of the Middle District of Louisiana issued a temporary restraining order in May requiring the state to return the heat alert threshold to 88 degrees. The Barack Obama appointee found evidence showed that is the temperature at which the risk of conditions like heat stroke substantially increases and noted that the state increased the threshold after he’d issued a prior temporary restraining order requiring Louisiana to improve conditions on the Farm Line.

Jackson’s May order automatically expired after 90 days, as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. A day later, Jackson issued a nearly identical preliminary injunction, which the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed while Louisiana appealed the order.

Louisiana Assistant Solicitor General Caitlin Huettemann told the Fifth Circuit panel Wednesday that the successive injunction violates the PLRA, calling it “a workaround” of the law’s 90-day limit on preliminary injunctions in prison condition lawsuits.

But plaintiffs’ attorney Kimberly Grambo said there isn’t any case law supporting the state’s argument that the PLRA prohibits successive preliminary injunctions.

“What they’re advancing is that in a complex class action prison litigation that could potentially last for years, plaintiffs are limited to a single preliminary injunction of 90 days, and after that they are out of luck, or they must jam their entire litigation and proceed to a final judgment, a permanent injunction within that single 90 day period,” she said. “The consequences of that reading would be dire.”

Senior U.S. Circuit Judge W. Eugene Davis asked whether the preliminary injunction is still necessary. The Ronald Reagan appointee questioned the likelihood of there being any more days where the apparent temperature reaches 88 degrees before the preliminary injunction automatically expires on Nov. 20.

Grambo said Jackson looked at data from the past three years and found there was a likelihood that the apparent temperature could reach the 88-degree threshold throughout November.

“This court has to find that that was clearly erroneous in order to second-guess that finding,” she said.

Louisiana argues that, in finding the state was deliberately indifferent to the safety of prisoners by raising the threshold, Jackson failed to consider changes Louisiana has made since the start of the litigation to ensure prisoner safety on the Farm Line, such as providing shade, water, ice and regular rest periods regardless of the temperature. Huettemann said Jackson’s order constitutes “quintessential micromanagement” of prison policy, which she argued the PLRA prohibits.

U.S. Circuit Judge Carl Stewart, a Bill Clinton appointee, pushed back on this argument, saying he felt a personal connection to it.

“When I was a child, growing up in segregated schools, the position of the state [in opposing integration] was that judges were micromanaging schools,” Stewart said. “And I guess I’d still be in segregated schools if they hadn’t.”

U.S. Circuit Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Joe Biden appointee, joined Davis and Stewart on the panel.