SLAP AT JUSTICE

Do Time, Shoot Drugs, Get Sick - Then, Of Course, Sue The State

OK, so you've robbed, raped, maybe killed a person or two. And you happen
to have acquired a drug habit along the way, one you continue to indulge
even after you've taken up residence behind bars for some of your misdeeds.
Perhaps you've decided to get one of those low-grade tattoos while in the
slam, too, the kind one of your fellow cons carves into your flesh with a
needle he just used on three guys before you. Three guys who also use
intravenous drugs.

And then you get sick. Your liver starts to go. What are you going to do?
Sue the Colorado Department of Corrections, of course.

Find an enterprising lawyer, and he might even file a class-action suit on
behalf of the many other similarly afflicted inmates.

That's what attorney David Lane is threatening to do. He represents
convicted killer Frank Rodriguez, who has the dual distinction of being the
longest-serving resident on Colorado's death row in Canon City and, as we
learned in news reports last week, the first in recent memory who likely
will die before he meets his formal date with destiny.

That's because Rodriguez, who has been on death row pending appeals since
1987 for the 1984 torture, rape and murder of Lorraine Martelli near
Denver, was admitted to a hospital Friday and diagnosed with hepatitis C.
His liver damage is so extensive it is believed he'll last only a few more
months.

In a follow-up report, the prison system's chief medical officer said an
estimated 17 percent of the state's 17,150 inmates have the disease, a rate
around 10 times that of society at large. The prisoners are believed to
pick up the often-fatal ailment in such inordinate numbers because of their
use of dirty needles for drugs and tattoos.

Pretty much a self-inflicted wound, you'd think, but Lane is outraged at
the system instead. He says it doesn't do enough to treat the sick inmates.

Officials counter that they're doing their best, that treatment is
expensive and that affected inmates must be evaluated case-by-case before
it can be known whether each case is too advanced to be treated with a
special, two-drug regimen still in its experimental stages.

Lane isn't buying any of that. He alleges the prison system is scrimping
and is looking for every excuse to get out of providing necessary treatment.

"They make the treatment available, but you have to jump through so many
hoops to become approved to take it that nobody can qualify," he said.

Hence, his talk of a class-action suit, which he says would break new legal
ground. "It's going to take millions and millions and millions of dollars
to treat hepatitis C in prison."

Thanks, Dave, for presenting us taxpayers the opportunity to pick up that tab.

Might a court find the knowing use of dirty needles - while in prison,
against all the rules - to be a mitigating factor in any liability the
state might have? A judge could wind up having to make that call if Lane
files his suit.

As if he hadn't displayed enough cheek for one week, Lane also
characterized Rodriguez's imminent death from hepatitis C as a victory of
sorts.

"He will maintain his dignity because the state won't strap him down to a
table and kill him," Lane said.

Would that be the sense of dignity Rodriguez had developed while shooting
heroin in prison? Or while stabbing Martelli to death so very many years ago?