The ACLU of Colorado filed suit yesterday against Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario, alleging that the Sheriff unjustifiably prohibited ACLU attorneys from conducting confidential interviews with jail prisoners who wanted to speak with the ACLU.

The lawsuit asks for an emergency order prohibiting the Sheriff from barring confidential visits when ACLU staff attorney Taylor Pendergrass returns to the jail in Glenwood Springs on Tuesday to conduct additional interviews.

According to the lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Denver yesterday evening, the ACLU Legal Department is actively investigating complaints from jail prisoners about a host of alleged practices at the jail.

ACLU attorneys spent three days at the jail last week, reviewing documents and conducting interviews. In the midst of the ACLU’s visit, the lawsuit says, Sheriff Vallario announced a new “policy” that prevented Mr. Pendergrass from speaking with three prisoners who had previously expressed an interest in obtaining legal assistance from the ACLU.

Instead of informing prisoners that they had a visit from an attorney, the Sheriff’s deputies instead asked each prisoner the open-ended question, “Who is your attorney?” If a prisoner did not name the ACLU as “his attorney,” then the Sheriff prohibited the visit.

“The prisoners were not informed that an ACLU attorney was at the jail requesting a visit,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. “We believe that if the prisoners had been asked if they wanted to speak with an ACLU attorney, they would have said yes.”

“Of course, prisoners held on criminal charges will usually answer that ‘their attorney’ is their criminal defense attorney,” Silverstein continued. “This is especially true because ACLU attorneys have not yet agreed to represent any of the jail prisoners. Nevertheless, the prisoners have a legal right to meet with attorneys to seek legal advice and discuss the possibility of representation. And ACLU lawyers have a legal right to meet with prisoners who wish to speak with us.”

According to Silverstein, one prisoner who had been corresponding extensively with the ACLU saw through the Sheriff’s “trick question.” He apparently advised other prisoners in that section of the jail to identify the ACLU when asked “Who is your attorney?” ACLU attorneys were able to interview prisoners housed in that section of the jail, Silverstein said. But the three prisoners the ACLU was prohibited from interviewing are housed in a different section.

Silverstein said the Sheriff was unable to provide a copy of the “policy” that is challenged in the lawsuit. “Neither prisoners nor criminal defense attorneys with years of practice in Glenwood Springs have heard of this policy before,” Silverstein said. “I hope this policy was not invented for the purpose of interfering with the ACLU’s ability to investigate complaints about the Sheriff’s treatment of prisoners in the jail.”

A declaration filed with the lawsuit includes a 15-point list of allegations the ACLU is investigating, including:
• unjustified use of restraint chairs as punishment, for too long, without appropriate involvement of medical personnel;

• abusive and unjustified use and threats to use pepperball guns, pepper and tasers on prisoners for minor noncompliance;

• arbitrary imposition of harsh

disciplinary measures for minor infractions, without due process, and without following the Inmate Handbook;

• unjustifiable delay of medical attention and decontamination of prisoners who have been subjected to pepper spray or pepperball pellets, in some cases forcing them to remain strapped in the restraint chair while contaminated with pepper spray or pepper dust;

“Prisoners in other jails have died in the restraint chair,” Silverstein said, “and pepper spray and tasers have been associated with at least 200 in-custody deaths in this country.” The ACLU is particularly concerned because the Sheriff has no written policy regulating the use of restraint chairs, pepperball guns, or tasers in the jail.” Silverstein said that in response to ACLU requests under the open records laws, the Sheriff replied that he had no written training materials about the proper use of these devices, nor any written literature or guidelines from the manufacturers.

In order to continue its investigation, the ACLU asked the federal district court rule on its motion for a temporary restraining order by Monday at the latest, so that Mr. Pendergrass can interview prisoners when he returns to the jail on Tuesday.

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The ACLU of Colorado announced today that its attorneys will defend Deborah Davis, a Denver-area passenger on a public RTD bus who declined to produce ID and was subsequently arrested, handcuffed, and removed from the bus on September 26 by Homeland Security officers at the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood. Ms. Davis is scheduled to appear in federal district court on December 9 to face criminal charges stemming from her failure to show ID.

“Ms. Davis was not getting off the bus at the Federal Center and had no intention of entering any federal building,” said Gail Johnson, an ACLU cooperating attorney who will defend Ms. Davis in court. “Our client believes that the federal government had no right to demand that she produce identification as a condition of riding to work on a public bus that happens to pass through the Federal Center. She is willing to risk going to jail in order to take a stand as a matter of principle.”

The arrest occurred as Ms. Davis was commuting to work on RTD Route #100, which crosses through the Federal Center property. When the bus stopped at the entrance, a guard boarded and demanded that each passenger produce a photo ID for inspection. Ms. Davis, a 50-year-old mother of four children, one of whom is a U.S. Army soldier fighting in Iraq, has said that she refused to produce ID because she believes the government had no right to demand it. Federal law enforcement authorities held her for two hours, and she later received a formal notice to appear in court.

“We don’t believe that the federal government has the legal authority to put Deborah Davis in jail, or even to make her pay a fine, for declining the government’s request that she produce photo identification,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. “Ms. Davis was commuting to her workplace and had no intention of exiting the bus at the Federal Center. She was doing nothing wrong, and she was not even suspected of doing anything wrong. Passengers are not required to carry passports or any other identification documents in order to ride to work on a public bus line.”

Also representing Ms. Davis as an ACLU volunteer attorney is Norman Mueller. Both Mueller and Johnson are with Haddon, Morgan, Mueller, Jordan, Mackey & Foreman, P.C.

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The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado (ACLU) announced today that the Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC) had agreed to resume providing kosher meals to Timothy Sheline, a Jewish prisoner whose kosher food diet was revoked for one year as punishment for allegedly violating a minor dining hall rule.

Two days ago, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of Sheline, asserting that the DOC unjustifiably revoked his kosher diet because a guard in the dining hall reported that Sheline was caught taking two packages of butter and two packages of salad dressing from his food tray and putting them in his pocket.

“DOC officials deserve praise for quickly taking action to restore Mr. Sheline’s ability to eat in the prison dining hall without violating his sincerely-held religious beliefs,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. “We were ready to ask the Court for an emergency injunction this week if Mr. Sheline’s kosher meals were not restored right away. The DOC’s prompt action now makes this unnecessary.”

Restoring Mr. Sheline’s kosher meals resolves the most pressing issue in the lawsuit, Silverstein said, but it does not resolve the entire case. “The lawsuit also challenges the DOC regulation that authorizes DOC officials to revoke prisoners’ right to a religious diet for unjustifiable reasons and without due process,” Silverstein said. “Today’s action was a good first step, but problems with the DOC’s regulation remain unresolved.”

Since his kosher diet was revoked in April, the lawsuit states, Sheline has been struggling to survive on a severely-restricted diet of the few kosher foods he has been able to purchase at the prison canteen with his meager funds. As a result, he has lost over 30 pounds on a diet consisting almost entirely of peanut butter and crackers.

The ACLU lawsuit relies on the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion and a federal statute enacted in 2000, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which strengthens legal protections for prisoners’ religious activities. 

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