Class Action Against Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Eventually the case went to court as a class action lawsuit alleging that the treatment of women at CCWF and CIW violated the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment. In the words of the lawsuit, the DOC’s “indifference to plaintiffs' serious medical needs causes avoidable pain, mental suffering and deterioration of their health. In some cases, it has resulted in premature death.” 1 . Aspects of the lawsuit detail the difficult and uncertain process of accessing care including the notorious outpatient housing unit, the use of untrained prisoners and unqualified MTAs as healthcare providers, failure to treat chronic diseases or to follow CDC guidelines for patients with tuberculosis, a lack of equipment such as functioning wheelchairs, and discrimination against HIV positive women. Despite the threat of retaliation, the horrific incidents within the lawsuit were witnessed and reported by prisoners.
Courtesy of Freedom Archives
The lawsuit was initially successful, and forced the state to settle and submit to court ordered monitoring. The California Department of Corrections was obligated to provide consistent medication, essential medical care like pelvic and breast exams, and emergency medical treatment. More importantly, this was enforced by a court-appointed team of five medical experts that monitored the prisons.
While the plaintiffs fought to end blatant human rights violations, abolitionists inside and outside of prison walls also demanded dignity and freedom for all incarcerated people and envisioned new types of justice and community. Members of the CCWP attended the first national Critical Resistance conference in September of 1998 and dedicated the September issue of the Fire Inside to the theme of Critical Resistance. In an article entitled Critical Reistance: Expanding Our Vision of What's Possible CCWP frames Shumate's leadership and the lawsuit as an "out-right challenge to the whole system." In response to the sacrifices of those on the inside, CCWP organizers asked: "Can we, in solidarity with women on the inside, make it possible to expand what freedom means, so that it does not merely mean releasing prisoners into a society that creates prisons in the first place?"
In October 2000, Shumate and 19 other women testified at a state hearing on California’s Joint Legislative Committee on Prison Construction. This 2001 newsletter from Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, an organization which represented Shumate and other prisoners in the lawsuit, includes particularly compelling testimony. The same year, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children revealed how administrators tampered with medical files and falsified medical test results.
Despite these possibilities, scholar-activists like Victoria law argue that lawsuits have inherent limitations. People incarcerated at Valley State Prison for Women were excluded from the settlement agreement. Women like uterine cancer patient Carolina Paredes still died under preventable circumstances in CCWF in 1999 and 2000. 2 Despite the continued efforts of the plantiffs and their legal counsel, the DOC was able to settle the case in 2000 because the defendants were not given enough time by the courts to reopen a trial. 3 .
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Victoria Law, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (PM Press, 2012),119↩
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Victoria Law, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (PM Press, 2012),119↩
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Pétre Hill, “Death Through Administrative Indifference: The Prison Litigation Reform Act Allows Women to Die in California’s Substandard Prison Health Care System,” 43.↩
Tragically, Shumate’s illness was fatal, as she and her comrades had imagined it would be. Legal organizations organized for her to see her family and eventually won her compassionate release, a policy meant to allow incarcerated people to be released within six months of death and pass away surrounded by their family and community. Governor Davis was opposed to the policy and stalled her release until Shumate died in prison on August 4th, 2001. 5
Interview with Mary Shields 2020-05-13
As Shields explained, losing Shumate was like “going back into hell,” because her voice was so singularly powerful and instilled fear in prison officials.
"And so she taught me how to stand up for myself, and I started standing up for myself. And because I started standing up for myself, the other ladies started watching me, you know. But I remember what she said to me. And she told me, she said, I'm going to die here you're not. Go on and live that life for me and you because I'm gonna make it possible for you to get out of here, and she did. She made it possible for me to get out and other women too. Everyday I think about what she said to me, every day that I am walking here. I'm allowed to be with my family and my son, and people that passed away and I was not able to say goodbye or be there with them, you know, with them because I was incarcerated, you know, and I have to take responsibility for what I did. And I do, you know."
Nevertheless, Shields and her friends carried on Shumate’s legacy. During her 19 year sentence, Shields was known as a mentor to many younger women and a steadfast member of community groups in the prison, like the Battered Women group she was initially reluctant to join. These relationships would lead her to the survival and freedom of countless more women.
Ultimately, the inside outside organizing of the CCWP had a much more fan reaching effect than the initial lawsuit, as the organization expanded its work over time and tirelessly struggled for the human rights and freedom of people in women's prisons. Reflecting the strategic pursuit of "non-reformist reforms" prioritized by abolitionists, CCWP members organized as part of the Habeus Project and the Drop Life Without Parole campaign to free countless incarcerated people. This combination of legal work and grassroots organizing secures civil rights and freedom while moving towards abolition.