Inmate sues over lack of lunches on weekends

POCATELLO – A man sentenced to death in two states is suing the kitchen supervisor of Idaho’s maximum-security prison because the state no longer serves lunch to inmates on weekends.

Timothy Dunlap was sentenced to death in 1992 for killing Tonya Crane during a bank robbery in Caribou County. He has also been sentenced to death in Ohio for killing his girlfriend a few weeks before Crane’s death.

The Idaho State Journal reported Dunlap filed the lawsuit in Boise’s U.S. District Court last week, contending that he is losing weight and had a heart attack because of the change to weekend meals implemented in 2011.

Idaho inmates get three meals a day except weekends, when they get a larger breakfast and dinner and a piece of fruit at lunch time. State officials said both the weekday and weekend menus meet the expected caloric requirements for inmates. Prisoners can also request medically ordered sack lunches if needed for health reasons.

In the lawsuit, Dunlap contends that on Oct. 11, 2011, former kitchen supervisor Dennis Frick stopped serving lunch on Saturdays and Sundays at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of Boise.

“I keep losing weight and suffered a heart attack due to low sodium,” Dunlap wrote in the suit. “I do know that it is cruel and unusual for the kitchen not serving lunch on the weekends.”

It’s the second time Dunlap has filed a lawsuit over the weekend menu. The first time the lawsuit was dismissed because the Idaho Attorney General successfully argued that Dunlap failed to exhaust the administrative remedies available to inmates through the prison grievance system.