“Abhorrent” Medical Care at Angola
Louisiana has long subjected incarcerated people to cruel and unusual punishment by medical mistreatment.
Along with co-counsel, PJI has secured massive victories in our decade-long federal lawsuit to force the State finally to provide basic standards of care to men incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola).
Here’s how Verite News/ProPublica recently described our class action and lead Plaintiff Kentrell Parker:
Kentrell Parker is among the most frail inmates in Louisiana’s prison system, requiring constant care from a medical system that has largely failed to meet the needs of people like him. The deficiencies of Angola’s medical system are well documented: Department of Justice reports in the 1990s, a court-monitored lawsuit settlement in 1998 and a federal judge’s opinions in another lawsuit filed in 2015.
In 1994, the Justice Department reported that Angola inmates were punished for seeking medical care, with seriously ill patients placed in “isolation rooms.” Prison staff failed to “recognize, diagnose, treat, or monitor” inmates’ medical needs, including “serious chronic illnesses and dangerous infections and contagious diseases.” Two decades later, a federal judge wrote that Angola’s medical care has caused “unspeakable” harm and amounts to “abhorrent cruel and unusual punishment.”
The district court first ruled in our favor in 2021. We secured another landmark win in November 2023, when the court again held that the prison knew incarcerated men were sick but failed to provide them with adequate treatment, worsening their conditions and in several cases leading to their deaths. That 100-page opinion paints a bleak picture: untrained inmates doing the work of nurses, patients locked in isolation rooms, unsanitary conditions and a medical staff that routinely ignored patients’ needs.
“The corrosive toll of incarceration on a person’s health cannot be denied,” said Lydia Wright, PJI’s Associate Director of Civil Litigation. “The evidence clearly demonstrates what our clients have known for decades: that the State has deliberately denied basic healthcare to thousands of people, resulting in a status quo of constant illness and despair.”
The State has appealed the district court’s ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case is Lewis v. Cain, No. 3:15-cv-00318-SDD-RLB (M.D. La), sub nom. Parker v. Hooper, 23-30825 (5th Cir. 2023)