The case concerned Francisco Castaneda, a Salvadoran citizen who complained about what turned out to be penile cancer while held in an immigration detention facility in San Diego.
Over the course of about 10 months, Mr. Castaneda repeatedly sought treatment for what he said was an increasingly painful lesion. Though he was advised several times that he needed a biopsy to determine whether he had cancer, employees of the United States Public Health Service, which provides medical personnel to federal prisons and detention facilities, denied the recommended procedure, saying it was elective.
Instead, Mr. Castaneda was treated with ibuprofen and antibiotics. He was also given, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the court, “an additional ration of boxer shorts.”
After a fourth specialist recommended a biopsy, Mr. Castaneda was released from custody. He promptly went to an emergency room, where a biopsy was performed. It showed that Mr. Castaneda had penile cancer.
His penis was amputated, but the cancer had metastasized to his groin. Mr. Castaneda filed suit in late 2007 and died in February 2008.
The trial judge, in allowing the case to go forward, said it “should be taught to every law student as conduct for which the moniker ‘cruel’ is inadequate.”
The legal question in the case, Hui v. Castaneda, No. 08-1529, was whether the Federal Tort Claims Act bars suits against individuals in such circumstances.
Saying the justices “are mindful of the confines of our judicial role,” Justice Sotomayor said the act allows only suits against the government.
Such suits, however, are generally not as attractive to plaintiffs. They are governed by state law, which in Mr. Castaneda’s case appears to cap his estate’s damages at $250,000. They do not allow punitive damages. And they are not tried before a jury.
Justice Sotomayor wrote that the government has recently “filed a formal notice admitting liability with respect to” Mr. Castaneda’s “claims for medical negligence” under the Federal Tort Claims Act. His estate is therefore likely to receive the limited compensation available under that law.
Steven R. Shapiro, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a brief supporting Mr. Castaneda, said there was a solution to the court’s narrow readings of the applicable federal statutes.
“Today’s decision just highlights the need for Congress to address the systemic failure of our immigration detention system,” Mr. Shapiro said.
Mistrials
The justices divided 6 to 3 over whether a judge in a state criminal trial had been too quick to order a new trial after hearing that the jury might be deadlocked.
The defendant, Reginald Lett, was ultimately convicted of shooting a taxi driver to death in 1996 after an argument outside a Detroit liquor store. His first trial, in June 1997, took less than nine hours, though spread out over several days. During some four hours of deliberation, jurors sent out seven notes. One said: “What if we can’t agree? Mistrial? Retrial? What?”
Moments later, the jurors sent another note: “What about lunch?”
The first of those notes caused the judge to call the jury back to the courtroom and interview its forewoman. The forewoman, in a three-minute exchange with the judge, was equivocal about whether the jury was hopelessly deadlocked but ultimately said the jury would not be able reach a unanimous verdict.
The judge declared a mistrial on the spot. At a second trial in November 1997, the jury deliberated for just over three hours before finding Mr. Lett guilty of second-degree murder. Lower federal courts later ruled that the conviction had violated Mr. Lett’s rights under the double jeopardy clause of the Constitution.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for himself and five others, suggested that the trial judge might have acted too rashly. But he upheld the decision of the state court.
“We do not deny that the trial judge could have been more thorough before declaring a mistrial,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the case, Renico v. Lett, No. 09-338. But federal courts should not, he said, second-guess the reasonable decisions of state court even when those decisions may be incorrect.
Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and, in large part, by Justice Stephen G. Breyer.
“Reginald Lett’s constitutional rights were violated when the trial court terminated his first trial without adequate justification, and he was subsequently prosecuted for the same offense,” Justice Stevens wrote. “The majority does not appear to dispute this point, but it nevertheless denies Lett relief by applying a level of deference to the state court’s ruling that effectively effaces the role of the federal courts.”
Death penalty
The court turned down without comment an appeal from a British woman on death row in Texas. The inmate, Linda Carty, said the performance of her lawyer at her murder trial had been woefully inadequate.
The British government, in a supporting brief, had also urged the court to hear the case, saying that the authorities in Texas should have notified the British consulate of Ms. Carty’s arrest so that it could have provided her with legal assistance.