PHILADELPHIA – Briaheen Thomas, a 45-year-old man formerly of Philadelphia, has reached a settlement with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) following a lawsuit filed in 2016 in which he alleged that four prison officials violated his constitutional rights when they held him in inhumane conditions in a “dry cell.” 

In dry cells, all water is drained from the toilet and the water supply is cut off. Dry cells commonly lack linens and movable items other than a thin, uncomfortable mattress. The incarcerated person is stripped of clothing, only provided a thin smock to wear, and placed in restraints, including handcuffs and sometimes ankle shackles.  The DOC uses dry cells when prison staff allege that an incarcerated person has ingested contraband.

In May 2015, Thomas, who was housed at the State Correctional Institution at Rockview, was placed in a dry cell for nearly ten days after he ate a peanut M&M given to him by a friend during a routine visit. The friend had purchased the M&Ms from the vending machine in the prison’s visiting room in plain view of the surrounding guards.

One of the guards, who alleged that the M&M was a balloon containing drugs, immediately handcuffed Thomas and removed him from the visiting room. Prison officials then placed him in a dry cell in the prison’s infirmary.

“They took my clothes, gave me a thin smock to wear, and handcuffed me to the bed,” said Thomas, who is no longer incarcerated and has moved out of state. “The cell had a light on 24/7 and no running water. They made me eat with my hands and go to the bathroom in a bedpan. I couldn’t clean up after myself at all. I asked for hand sanitizer, but they wouldn’t give it to me. The cell reeked of urine and feces—I can still remember the smell vividly. It was disgusting and dehumanizing.”

To expedite his release from the dry cell, Thomas was offered laxatives, which he accepted. Over the next four days, Thomas had twelve bowel movements, in which no evidence of any contraband was found. On his second day in the dry cell, prison staff X-rayed him and found no evidence of contraband. Despite the clear X-ray of his digestive system, Thomas was placed back in the dry cell for eight more days.

“The fact that Mr. Thomas was held in the dry cell after twelve contraband-free bowel movements and an X-ray that cleared him of any wrongdoing shows just how flawed this procedure is,” said attorney Jim Davy of All Rise Trial & Appellate. “Dry celling is a barbaric practice that, in light of X-rays and body scan machines used in DOC facilities, serves no purpose. The DOC officials tasked with Mr. Thomas’s care showed an extreme lack of humanity in this case. Their actions were clearly unconstitutional, and our society should not condone them.”

In 2016, Thomas filed suit in federal court alleging that four officials at SCI Rockview had violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. His suit noted that one of his wrists was handcuffed to the bed frame the whole time he was in the dry cell and he was not provided water to wash his hands, toilet paper, sanitary wipes, a toothbrush, or a blanket even though he complained of being cold.

After the trial court judge dismissed Thomas’s case, attorney Jim Davy, then with the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, began representing him and appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In early 2020, the appellate court ruled in Thomas’s favor, concluding that a jury should decide whether the defendants violated Thomas’s rights by keeping him in the dry cell despite knowing that he had not ingested contraband.

About a month before the trial was set to begin, the parties have now reached a settlement, which requires the DOC to compensate Thomas for the harm he suffered as a result of his placement in the dry cell. “Although we were eager to tell a jury about Mr. Thomas’s compelling story, we are tremendously happy that resolving this case will help our client move past the ordeal he experienced in the dry cell,” said Rachel A.H. Horton of DLA Piper LLP (US), a firm that represented Mr. Thomas pro bono. 

“I am pleased that the DOC recognized the need to compensate Mr. Thomas for the torture its officials inflicted on him,” said Matthew A. Feldman of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, who also represented Thomas. “The DOC has a history of overreacting to purported concerns about illicit drugs and subjecting people to unconstitutional treatment as a result. Dry cells are the most extreme example. I sincerely hope this case leads the DOC to reconsider its use of dry cells, which subject people to painful, inhumane, and traumatic conditions that far exceed any legitimate purpose dry cells supposedly serve. It is all the more egregious that these conditions are sometimes imposed even in the face of clear evidence that no contraband has been ingested, as in Mr. Thomas’s case.”

The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project is currently representing another client who was placed in a dry cell, with similarly inhumane conditions, in a federal lawsuit against officials at SCI Chester.

Briaheen Thomas is represented by Jim Davy of All Rise Trial & Appellate; Matthew A. Feldman of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project; and Nancy Shane Rappaport, Rachel A.H. Horton, and Jean Camille Gabat of DLA Piper LLP (US). The case is Thomas v. Tice, et al., No. 4:16-cv-1487 (M.D. Pa.).

###