close

Judge to decide if DOC should hand over inmate records to Herald-Standard

By Mark Hofmann mhofmann@heraldstandard.Com 5 min read

A panel of Commonwealth Court judges will review and decide if the state Department of Corrections (DOC) has violated the right-to-know law after the Herald-Standard requested inmate medical records from SCI-Fayette in 2014.

Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer entered a order that requires the DOC to respond by Aug. 8 to court papers filed by newspaper attorney Charles Kelly, who asked the court to immediately order the DOC to turn over data related to health issues at the prison.

The request stemmed from a third-party report from the Abolitionist Law Center titled “No Escape: Exposure to Toxic Coal Waste at State Correctional Institution Fayette” in September. 2014. That report found prisoners were suffering from serious health problems including respiratory and pulmonary diseases and various cancers higher than the general population.

Kelly wrote in his brief that in depositions taken from DOC officials during the course of the nearly two-year legal battle show that the agency did little to fill a right-to-know (RTK) request filed by the Herald-Standard.

Chris Oppman, the director for the Bureau of Health Care Services for the DOC, and Dr. Paul Noel, the chief of Clinical Services for the DOC, both said responsive records were withheld from the newspaper, Kelly wrote.

Kelly stated that Oppman recalled an e-mail exchange between the DOC and the state Department of Health regarding the DOC’s investigation on the environmental conditions of the prison, but those e-mails weren’t provided to the Herald-Standard.

In Noel’s deposition, he described numerous documents related to the same investigation that were also never provided as well as other e-mails.

In his brief, Kelly further points out that the DOC didn’t provide inmate medical records relevant to the request because the DOC had stated such records would have been too difficult to locate and copy because of the way the records were filed and maintained.

“When the DOC could provide information to support their public rebuttal of the Abolitionist Report, it did everything within its power; however, when the DOC was required to disclose information to (the newspaper) as part of the public debate and oversight of the environmental and health conditions at SCI-Fayette that could reveal negative results for the DOC, the DOC did nothing at all,” Kelly writes in the brief.

Kelly went on to state the newspaper was never looking to identify individuals through medical records, and only sought the data on illnesses. That data is subject to disclosure as the DOC could have easily redacted personal inmate information, he wrote.

What Kelly calls the “most glaring example” of bad faith from the DOC was their lack of effort to even search for documents or performing any investigation regarding what would be considered responsive to the newspaper’s request.

The DOC was contacted by the Herald-Standard in 2014 with a request seeking documentation of illnesses contracted by inmates and/or staff members at the State Correctional Institution (SCI) at Fayette in Labelle, Luzerne Township.

The Abolitionist Law Center’s report linked the health issues to the nearby toxic coal ash dump and included first-hand reports from inmates suffering from various illnesses that went untreated and neglected by prison medical staff.

In response to the report, the DOC launched its own investigation at SCI-Fayette and released a report on Dec. 31, 2104, stating there was “no credible evidence of any unsafe environmental conditions at the facility or of any abnormalities with regard to the safety and health of the inmates at the prison.”

However, the DOC report — issued in the form of a press release — did not fulfill the newspaper’s request for records.

The Herald-Standard’s request clarified that no identifying information was being sought on inmates or staff, only the types of reported contracted illnesses, particularly respiratory ailments and various types of cancer, and the number of inmates or staff with those illnesses reported at the prison since its opening.

In court papers, Kelly contended the DOC withheld readily available information including medical records and investigation-related documents and made limited, piecemeal and untimely production of requested documents.

The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records (OOR) released a final determination statement on Dec. 1, 2014, based on the appeal from the Herald-Standard in the matter.

In its findings, the OOR determined that the DOC had not established that responsive records are exempt in a non-criminal investigation and that the DOC didn’t provide any evidence to explain why the records are exempt.

The OOR stated the DOC is required to provide all responsive records to the newspaper within 30 days. When the DOC did not comply, the newspaper filed suit in Commonwealth Court.

Kelly asked that the DOC be immediately ordered to search for and produce documents and information responsive to the RTK request, reimburse the newspaper for legal fees and other related costs and should be subject to sanctions under the RTK Law including civil penalties.

The DOC has until Aug. 8 to file a brief in opposing the claims, and once all briefs are filed, a panel of the Commonwealth Court will make a decision.

Unless otherwise ordered from the court, there will be no oral arguments on the matter as a decision is expected to be made based on the submitted briefs.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $4.79/week.

Subscribe Today