DOC Obligations – Medical Care of Prisoner

Listen to this article

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Lisa Mitchell v. Kevin Kallas, et al.

Case No.: 16-3350

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, HAMILTON, Circuit Judge, and BUCKLO, District Judge.

Focus: DOC Obligations – Medical Care of Prisoner

Lisa Mitchell is a transgender person who has identified as a woman her entire life. After an arrest in Wisconsin, officials from the state’s Department of Corrections (“DOC”) repeatedly prevented Mitchell from obtaining access to the treatments she needed to express her gender identity. It took DOC over a year to evaluate Mitchell’s candidacy for hormone therapy, and even then, nothing happened. Instead, DOC refused to provide Mitchell with the treatment its own expert recommended, on the ground that Mitchell was within a month of release from the prison. Although DOC’s Mental Health Director, Dr. Kevin Kallas, encouraged Mitchell to find a community provider to prescribe her hormones, DOC parole officers prevented Mitchell from following this advice. Still under state custody, the terms of Mitchell’s parole actually prohibited her from taking hormones or dressing as a woman.

Mitchell sued, contending that the prison doctors and the parole officers violated her constitutional rights. It is well established that persons in criminal custody are entirely dependent on the state for their medical care. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 103 (1976). Prison officials thus have a constitutional duty to provide inmates with the care they require for their serious medical needs. Prison staff cannot bide their time and wait for an inmate’s sentence to expire before providing necessary treatments. This affirmative obligation ends when imprisonment does, but state officials may not block a parolee from independently obtaining health care. The only limitation is that the condition be serious enough to trigger constitutional protection; otherwise the nature of the disorder is irrelevant. Because the district court prematurely rejected some of Mitchell’s claims, we reverse in part.

Reversed in part.

Full Text

Did not say affirmed in part; just reversed in part.

Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.