Judge mandates reforms at Marcy Correctional Facility’s RMHU

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — A federal court judge in Syracuse granted a temporary court order on Monday meant to immediately change the Marcy Correctional Facility’s Residential Mental Health Unit, or RMHU. The preliminary injunction requires the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to provide specific out-of-cell time and programming to anyone held in that facility.

Everyone in the RMHU must be able to spend a total of seven hours every day outside of their cell. On weekdays, this includes four hours of structured therapeutic programming or mental health treatment and three hours of congregate programming, services, treatment, recreation, or meals. There is no therapeutic programming on weekends, so people who are incarcerated will get the full seven hours for congregate activities.

The defendants also have five weeks to conduct out-of-cell mental health evaluations for all consenting incarcerated individuals in the RMHU. These will be on top of the regular mental health care already provided. These specific requirements relate are similar to provisions in the HALT Act.

Robert Brooks, a 43-year-old Black man from Greece, New York, died at Marcy Correctional Facility in December, one day after being beaten by facility staff. Several correction officers were charged with murder in that case.

The class-action lawsuit features eight named plaintiffs whose legal team filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on September 8. Class action lets one or more people sue on behalf of a larger group with similar claims, often used when the defendant’s actions have harmed a many people in a similar way.

The initial complaint alleged that the facility leaders and government officials knowingly deprived those in the RMHU all out-of-cell programming and mental health treatment. It brought several legal claims:

• That the defendants discriminate by excluding people with disabilities from participation in programs and services because of their disabilities, violating the Americans with Disabilities Act;
• That the defendants, as recipients of federal funds, didn’t give people with disabilities meaningful access to their programs and services, violating the Rehabilitation Act of 1973;
• That the “deliberate indifference to medical necessities and failure to address serious and life-threatening medical and mental health needs” constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, violating the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.

The suit named New York State, Governor Kathy Hochul, Office of Mental Health Commissioner Ann Marie Sullivan, RMHU Unit Chief Vincent Lorusso, DOCCS, and DOCCS Commissioner Daniel Martuscello III as defendants. According to the complaint, each defendant knew that such isolation and lack of programming would worsen mental health and increase risks to the incarcerated.

Indeed, the lawsuit alleged that despite the RMHU being created in 2007 to prevent segregated confinement and provide a therapeutic setting, the defendants are now operating it “in precisely the same manner as the segregated confinement housing units it was created to redress.” The complaint also connected the conditions to the correction officers’ strike in February.

Despite the HALT Act, DOCCS suspended most regular prison programs and services when the strike started, including group therapy. According to the lawsuit, no programming at the Marcy RMHU has left people confined to their cells for almost 24 hours a day ever since. It details hunger strikes and attempted suicides on the part of people who are currently incarcerated there.

Judge Mae D’Agostino signed the proposed order on Monday after Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Loefke, representing the defense, told the court that they’d reached a resolution with the plaintiffs. Take a look below: