NEW YORK, NY — The Legal Aid Society, Brooklyn Defender Services and Milbank LLP last week filed a contempt motion against the New York City Dept. of Corrections (DOC) for its continued failure to provide incarcerated New Yorkers’ access to medical care, despite the decision made in Agnew v. New York City Department of Corrections (2021).
If the contempt motion wins, the proposal of DOC distributing a $250 fine per health care appointment missed due to DOC’s operational failures payable to the class will be enforced, reported by Brooklyn Defenders.
“If DOC remains noncompliant,” the defenders adds, “the motion asks the court to appoint a monitor to advise DOC on how they can comply with their duty to provide access to healthcare for incarcerated New Yorkers.”
The filing also claims staff leaned on detainees to sign “medical refusal forms” or caused detainees to miss appointments because of lockdowns or searches that were later falsely recorded as “refusals,” reported the NY Daily News.
“We have strong evidence that numbers are being falsified,” said Alyssa Briody, a senior attorney with Brooklyn Defenders.
“Someone with DOC will ask them to sign a refusal form when there is no escort or the officer doesn’t want to take them. There is an inherent power imbalance. They don’t want to upset a correction officer,” Briody continued.
The court’s decision in Agnew stressed the DOC in correcting its “wrongs” years ago.
“All current and future people incarcerated in New York City…(DOC) facilities… have been or will be denied access to medical care based on [DOC]’s failure to discharge its ministerial duties,” the New York Supreme Court wrote. Petitioners have “demonstrated (DOC) has failed to comply with its nondiscretionary duties regarding petitioners’ access to medical care…”
Yet, despite the court ordering the DOC to immediately comply, charges the complaint, DOC has continued to violate the incarcerated rights to medical care.
As of Aug. 2024, this has resulted in thousands of missed medical appointments and dangerous situations for people in custody, reported Brooklyn Defenders adding, “These delays and outright denials of access to care lead to unnecessary pain, worsening of treatable conditions, and immense suffering for incarcerated people.”
“Incarcerated New Yorkers have a right to access medical care while in custody, and the DOC’s continued failure to comply with the law and any semblance of humanity, is beyond the pale,” said Veronica Vela, supervising attorney with the Prisoners’ Rights Project at The Legal Aid Society.
“Since this case was first brought in 2021, access to medical care in City’s jails has only worsened, and the Department lacks both the basic competence and willingness to rectify this situation. As such, we’re asking a court to hold them once again in contempt for this abject cruelty,” Vela added.
The motion contains written testimonies of clients who suffered under DOC’s jurisdiction. “I did not refuse to go,” stated Johnny Basnight in an affidavit for this motion. He currently cannot walk due to his injured knee. “I simply requested an accommodation – a wheelchair – to allow me to safely access medical services while injured,” Basnight noted.
According to his client summary, DOC denied his request, and Basnight subsequently missed his radiology appointment. DOC then falsely reported to CHS that Basnight refused care.
According to another affidavit by Matthew Claire, he was asked by DOC staff to “sign a refusal form after being told by a DOC staff member that there was no DOC driver available to take him to his appointment.”
“I do not want my doctors to think that I do not want their help, because I do want and need their help,” wrote Claire, also adding, “But DOC needs to do its part to provide me with access [to] medical care, rather than asking me to take the blame for its own failure to provide a driver.”
Just weeks before the contempt motion was filed, 23-year-old Charizma Jones died after being denied access to care during a medical emergency while incarcerated at Rikers Island, according to N.Y. Daily Times.
The Times added, after DOC officers repeatedly blocked medical staff from treating her, Jones later died at a local hospital, prompting the New York City Department of Investigation, New York City Board of Correction (BOC), and the New York State Commission of Correction to open investigations into her death.
“Incarcerated New Yorkers are an extremely vulnerable population,” said Russell Spivak, associate at Milbank LLP. “It is unconscionable that the delivery of priority healthcare services to these individuals, for which DOC is responsible, was compromised.”
“DOC’s persistent failure to provide access to medical care endangers the health and lives of incarcerated New Yorkers,” said Alyssa Briody, senior attorney with Brooklyn Defenders’ Civil Rights & Law Reform Unit.
“People wait in pain and fear as their chronic conditions deteriorate, their medical issues become severe, and their urgent requests for emergency care are ignored. While people suffer, DOC flouts a court order to improve access to care and manipulates its data in an attempt to absolve itself of responsibility. DOC’s indifference to the health of the people in its custody cannot be allowed to continue,” Briody added.
