Privacy and Prisons
For reasons you will quickly understand, I will use the pseudonym Jane Doe to share the story of a recent victory on behalf of a woman locked in Ohio’s prison.
Jane Doe, a woman in her forties, entered the Ohio Reformatory for Women (“ORW”) in 2001. After medical testing soon after she arrived, Jane learned that she was HIV positive. She was devastated by her diagnosis and did not want her HIV status available to other inmates. For nearly ten years, she was able to maintain that privacy and receive treatment in confidence.
That changed in June 2011. Jane walked into the infirmary as she normally would to receive treatment. Another woman, also incarcerated, walked out and said to Jane, “You’ve got AIDS.” Humiliated, Jane entered the nurse’s office. She saw a piece of paper on a table, in plain view, with her inmate number followed by the HIV diagnosis. When she questioned the attending nurse why her information was sitting out, the nurse quickly covered up the paper and said, “I’m just doing my job.”
Immediately after, Jane felt anxious and depressed, worrying that the information would spread throughout ORW and that she would be shunned. She experienced trouble sleeping and eating, and she lost weight as a result. After some time passed, Jane hoped that her confidential HIV information would not be disclosed again. She was wrong.
In December 2011, ORW staff left Ms. Doe’s medical records unattended in the infirmary. This time an inmate working as a porter in the infirmary viewed the records. Later, in front of four other prisoners, the inmate shouted, “You sick, Bitch! I saw it with my own eyes. I saw your name and number and HIV on that paper. Bitch, you sick!” Ms. Doe’s anxiety and depression worsened. She suffered persistent insomnia. She lost her appetite.
The students in my Constitution Litigation Clinic, which operates through the Ohio Justice & Policy Center, partnered with Ohio State University’s Civil Litigation Clinic to try the case. We sued because the state prison system allowed our client’s confidential HIV information to be disclosed. Only recently the magistrate judge recommended that our client receive $7500. Here is the link to the opinion. Because we tried the case to a magistrate, the decision is not yet final.