Women confined to the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women (FCCW) – the Virginia prison for women – have for years been subjected to harsh and cruel conditions. Neglect of medical and mental health services have led to unnecessary deaths and suffering. The Committee, in partnership with the Legal Aid Justice Center and Wiley Rein, sued the State of Virginia and in 2015 reached a comprehensive consent decree designed to ensure that prisoners’ constitutional rights were respected.
The State of Virginia has failed to implement the decree. These failures have resulted in harm to the 1,200 women confined in Fluvanna. One prisoner, Andrea Nichols, experienced a prolonged period cramping, bleeding and significant weight loss. A colonoscopy was ordered, but it took more than two years before it was performed. When she was finally given the exam, Ms. Nichols was diagnosed with stage four rectal cancer that had spread to her liver. Additionally, two prisoners, Deanna Niece and Carolyn Liberato, died as a result of systematic issues with medical care at FCCW, including the failure to identify, diagnose or treat serious medical conditions. These incidents, and many more like them, could have been prevented had the facility implemented the consent decree that was reached in 2015.
In September 2017, the women incarcerated at FCCW filed a motion for contempt. A trial – led by Ted Howard and Wiley Rein and the lawyers at LAJC – was held on the contempt motion. On January 2, 2018, Virginia Federal District Court Judge Norman K. Moon ruled that the Virginia Department of Corrections had breached its duty to provide adequate medical care and violated the Court ordered reform agreement. the Judge held: “Women at FCCW have died in the months and years after approval of the settlement agreement.” The state was ordered to take immediate steps to address inadequate staffing and training, upgrade the facility’s medical facilities, and developing improved protocols to insure unimpeded access to timely medical care, among other changes.
The consent decree that was the subject of the contempt proceeding addressed all aspects of medical care at FCCW, from treatment of chronic and emergency conditions to staffing levels and access to outside providers. The court appointed a monitor report on the state’s compliance, which was supplemented by persistent monitoring by staff at LAJC. From the start, the state failed to comply with either the 2016 settlement or the U.S. Constitution, with at least 13 unnecessary deaths resulting from the failure to provide basic medical care since the signing of the agreement.
While defendants claim they had not been given enough time to comply with the settlement agreement, Judge Moon disagreed, noting, “The Settlement Agreement does not condone lollygagging.” One of the women who died after the settlement was signed was just three weeks away from being released. Judge Moon noted that, as she lay dying on the floor of her prison cell, nurses casually walked to her cell after an officer called in an emergency, but brought no medical equipment.
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