Delaware Court of Chancery Issues Landmark Decision in Prisoners’ Rights Case

Wilmington, DE — Yesterday the Delaware Court of Chancery issued a landmark decision on prisoners’ rights in the ACLU of Delaware’s lawsuit over the use of lethal chemical agents by Delaware correctional officers. The lawsuit alleges that officers use a specific class of chemical agents on incarcerated individuals in ways that are not just improper and unsafe, but malicious and lethal. The ACLU-DE represents eight incarcerated people who have reported numerous incidents of officers exposing them to OC chemicals – often without warning and in unnecessary ways – then being left for hours, days, and sometimes weeks to suffer without any decontamination from these chemical agents.

Although there was some existing case law about the Delaware Constitution’s cruel punishment clause before the ACLU-DE filed this lawsuit, the clause had never been used to challenge correctional officers’ cruel treatment of incarcerated people.

In its decision, the Court of Chancery held that the ACLU-DE established a reasonable probability of success on their claim that it is a violation of the Delaware Constitution for DOC officers not to decontaminate prisoners exposed to OC chemicals. The Court was clearly troubled by the DOC’s treatment of incarcerated people, finding that they “testified credibly” about experiencing “extreme and persistent pain because of a lack of Secure Decontamination. Video evidence of the prisoners’ real-time physical reactions corroborated their testimony.”

The Court also held that the DOC’s practice of using OC chemicals and failing to decontaminate could cause irreparable harm and long term health consequences for incarcerated people.

Following the ACLU-DE's filing, the DDOC quickly put in place a policy on decontamination, but the Court of Chancery found this policy to be meaningless because it doesn’t actually require any DOC staff to decontaminate incarcerated people.

“This is a huge victory for constitutional rights in our state,” said Jason Beehler, ACLU-DE Interim Legal Director. “The Court of Chancery has declared once and for all that our state constitution prohibits correctional officers from unnecessarily and seriously injuring incarcerated people. We are grateful that the Court has recognized the serious harm that the DOC’s actions pose to our clients and all others incarcerated in our state. Simply put, the DOC’s actions are cruel and unconstitutional, and we look forward to obtaining appropriate relief for our clients at trial.”

The case will proceed to trial in the next 120 days.