Laseur v. Miller

Oregon Const., art. 1, § 13 (“[n]o person arrested, or confined in jail, shall be treated with unnecessary rigor”)

Plaintiff, an incarcerated person at the Snake River Correctional Institution (SRCI) filed a habeas petition alleging that the Superintendent of SRCI denied him adequate medical care to treat a variety of conditions. In relevant part, the trial court found that the Defendant Superintendent treated Plaintiff with “unnecessary rigor” because the prison denied a cervical spine MRI with respect to Plaintiff’s cervical radiculopathy and failed to properly treat Plaintiff’s PTSD. On the latter point, the trial court found that while Plaintiff’s PTSD treatment (or lack thereof) did not amount to “cruel and unusual punishment,” it “was ‘a cognizable indignity,’ and that defendant’s failure to take ‘appropriate steps to diagnose and treat that pain’ amounted to unnecessary rigor.” The Defendant-Superintendent appealed.

The trial court improperly used a subjective standard when applying the Unnecessary Rigor Clause, and as a result the Court of Appeals affirmed relief as to the spinal MRI but reversed as to the PTSD.

The key part of the court’s analysis is how it defined unnecessary rigor and instructed courts to apply it. The court said that, first, the “constitutional prohibition against unnecessary rigor applies to the behavior towards, or care of, [incarcerated people], including their medical treatment, but for such treatment to rise to the level of a constitutional violation, it must be more severe or harsh than the circumstances require.”

To further refine the doctrine, the court looked to the 1981 Oregon Supreme Court case, Sterling v. Cupp, 625 P.2d 123 (1981), which held that unnecessary rigor is aimed at “minimizing needlessly harsh, degrading, or dehumanizing treatment of prisoners.” In this view, “unnecessary rigor” is not “confined only to such historically ‘rigorous’ practices as shackles, the ball and chain, or to physically brutal treatment or conditions[.]” Instead, the provision protects against a practice that “would be recognized as an abuse to the extent that it cannot be justified by necessity.”

The court then surveyed the history of the unnecessary rigor clause both in Oregon and elsewhere. Ultimately, the court explained that “when assessing claims of unnecessary rigor … the primary consideration should be whether the prison conditions and treatment are more strict, severe, or harsh than the circumstances require—a determination that requires consideration of whether the conditions and treatment are abusive, degrading, or inhumane.” And “to prove that medical treatment amounts to unnecessary rigor, [incarcerated people] must show some serious harm or injury, or exposure to an unnecessary risk of serious injury, or that the failure to provide the treatment is contrary to the consensus of medical professionals for treatment of the condition.”