Judge to open Idaho prison suit documents

BOISE – A federal judge has ordered that several documents be unsealed in a lawsuit between Idaho inmates and Corrections Corporation of America just days before a hearing is set over whether the private prison company should be held in contempt of court.

Inmates at the Idaho Correctional Center, represented by the ACLU of Idaho, brought the lawsuit in 2010, contending the CCA-run prison was so violent that prisoners called it “Gladiator School.”

CCA denied the allegations, but the two sides reached a deal requiring widespread staffing and safety changes. The settlement, which was made public, requires that parties try to resolve any disputes together before going back to court.

Late last year, the ACLU alleged the Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA was violating the terms of the agreement, and the two sides went into private mediation, during which virtually no records were included in the court file. Since the start of 2013, 19 documents – including four separate judges’ orders – have been filed under seal in the case. There were no open motions, orders or other documents detailing the courts’ justification for keeping the filings secret.

An order directing the inmates to be transported to the courthouse for an Aug. 7 hearing recently was included in the publicly available files, but at the time it was unclear if that hearing itself would be open to the public. According to the order, the hearing is being held so the judge can consider whether CCA breached the settlement or committed contempt of court for violating the agreement.

The newest order from U.S. District Judge David Carter, made public late last week, makes it clear that the hearing will be open and that only limited redactions will be allowed before the other documents in the case are unsealed.

Carter rejected arguments from CCA’s attorneys that the ACLU was seeking to make the documents open only to promote a public scandal. The judge noted that CCA has acknowledged giving inaccurate staffing records to the Idaho Department of Correction and that it failed to meet the minimum staffing terms of its $29 million contract with the state of Idaho for several months in 2012.

CCA maintains the understaffing caused no safety issues at the prison.