PANEL UPHOLDS PRISONER'S MEDICAL APPEAL

Prison officials' denial of medical treatment for a Sing Sing inmate
suffering from hepatitis C amounted to a "cruel and unusual
punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment," a panel of state
judges concluded in a ruling issued last week.

Four judges of the state Supreme Court's Appellate Division
unanimously upheld a May 2003 order by a judge in Westchester County
directing prison officials to provide medication for Angel Domenech,
53, a Bronx man whose condition was diagnosed as hepatitis C after a
liver biopsy in February 2002.

Domenech has been in prison since 1999, serving a 16-year maximum
sentence for attempted murder. He told prison officials when he was
being processed in 1999 that he only used alcohol and sniffed heroin
"when (he) was very young," according to court records.

Alexander Reinert, a lawyer representing Domenech, said his client
was told by prison officials that to receive treatment for his
hepatitis he would have to participate in an intensive six-month
drug-treatment program.

Domenech enrolled but dropped out after two weeks because, he said,
he hadn't used drugs for 30 years, the program included no useful
information about his medical condition and it disrupted his
educational classes and work schedule.

"Since he had been in prison at that point for more than two years,
where he presumably wouldn't have had access to drugs or alcohol, he
didn't see why the state should make this requirement of him in order
to get medical treatment," said Reinert, whose law firm took the case pro bono.

While there is no vaccine against hepatitis C, a blood-borne virus
transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids, a combination of
the medications interferon and ribavirin can eradicate the virus in
up to 80 percent of people infected with certain strains.

Domenech filed an inmate grievance in May 2002 after he was denied
the medications and filed a lawsuit on his own behalf after his
grievance was denied. State Supreme Court Justice Mary Smith ruled in
Domenech's favor more than two years ago, but prison officials have
refused to provide the medication while Smith's ruling was appealed.

"In a sense, this is just a way of playing chicken with Mr.
Domenech's medical condition," Reinert said. "It's our view that this
policy represents a way for the state to routinely release prisoners
without having to pay for this treatment, which is very expensive."

James Flateau, a spokesman for the state Department of Correctional
Services, declined to comment on Domenech's case while the department
was reviewing whether it would appeal the latest ruling to the Court
of Appeals, the state's highest court.

According to court documents, lawyers for the department argued that
the state court "should not interfere with the Department of
Corrections' regulations and that their denial of medical treatment
is in full compliance with the law."

Citing Domenech's admitted prior use of drugs and alcohol and his
refusal to stay in the drug treatment program, correction officials
insisted they were justified in refusing to provide the medication,
despite a doctor having written him a prescription for interferon in
September 2002.

In her ruling, Smith wrote that while there were limitations to
treatments available for hepatitis C, "this Court finds no treatment
at all to be repugnant to our standards of decency," and that
"failure to provide him with the necessary medical care has subjected
him to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment."