SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ All Christopher Lipsey Jr. wants is a fighting chance at a good night's sleep.
But the 34-year-old Corcoran State Prison inmate says he and hundreds of other prisoners have been subjected to virtual "torture" through the use of nightly welfare checks in the security housing unit, or SHU, conducted every half hour with pipe-like electronic devices that cause loud clanging noises and increase the possibility of suicide and mental degradation.
"I have experienced medical problems from the lack of sleep, including sleep deprivation, including headaches, dizziness and sudden fainting, an increased heart rate, blurred vision, excessive hunger, changes in weight, body cramps, irritability, anxiety, mood swings, memory loss and inability to concentrate," Lipsey wrote in a documents filed Friday in federal court in Sacramento.
The documents seek a temporary restraining order against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that would limit the checks using the Guard1 device at night to only once an hour and to require the prison system to switch to "an alternative, quieter system."
The device, which is made by Ohio-based TimeKeeping Systems, is branded as the Pipe. The 7-inch-long electronic device, featuring a stainless steel bar that guards strike against a metal disc on cell doors as they conduct their checks, has been in use in restrictive housing units since 2013 in an effort to reduce inmate suicides by having them checked on every 30 minutes.
CDCR spokeswoman Dana Simas noted that the regular checks are part of the department's efforts to reduce suicides in state prisons.
"The welfare checks were implemented as a suicide prevention measure as a result of a 1990 class-action lawsuit (Coleman) concerning mental health treatment for incarcerated persons, and are one of the many ways we work to prevent suicides in our institutions," she wrote in an email statement to The Sacramento Bee.
Lipsey, a Los Angeles street gang member originally sentenced to life in 2009 for first-degree attempted murder, received an additional 22-year sentence in January following an assault with a deadly weapon conviction while serving time in Kern Valley State Prison.
He has filed numerous suits against the prison system and others _ including at least three found to be frivolous or malicious _ and began fighting in court over sleep deprivation six years ago.
But his latest legal effort has been filed in the landmark Coleman case, a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of prisoners originally brought in 1990 that has led to court-ordered reductions in prison overcrowding and improvements in mental health care.
And his Bay Area attorneys, Shawna Ballard and Kate Falkenstein, have enlisted the aid of a Stanford University sleep medicine professor who says in a court-filed declaration that Lipsey "is exposed to unrelenting noise that is out of his control that can further (fuel) his insomnia and potentially worsens his health."
"I believe he is likely to suffer medical consequences such as worsening depression, and increased risk for suicide as well as being more impulsive and having potentially dangerous greater risk-taking behavior," Dr. Rafael Pelayo wrote.
CDCR already has taken steps to reduce the amount of nighttime disturbance inmates face at another prison SHU. At Pelican Bay State Prison, the department agreed in 2015 to temporarily make Guard1 checks only once an hour between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., and later made that policy permanent.
But Lipsey's court filing says that policy is not in effect at Corcoran, where checks are made every 30 minutes, in the three sections of the SHU, each of which has 22 cells.
"During each round of checks, the officer hits metal buttons on all 66 cells in the unit," Lipsey wrote in his declaration. "When the metal Guard One Pipe hits the metal buttons on the cells in the Corcoran SHU, it makes a loud banging noise.
"Officers often attempt to hit the Guard One button repeatedly, because they miss the button when they swing the first time."
The result, his attorneys argue, is that their client has been able to sleep only two to three hours a night sometimes as guards pass by with "clanging keys and loud footsteps" and strike each cell door with the Pipe, which also emits a "loud, high-pitched beep."
They contend in court documents that there are "ample quiet alternatives" on the market to the system now being used, and say that the Guard1 system has never been found to have prevented a suicide in a California prison.
"This concern is validated by a grisly fact: for at least five of the 30 suicides effectuated from 2015 to 2017 in restrictive units, rigor mortis had set in by the time the corpse was discovered even though the Guard One system recorded intervening checks finding no problem," they wrote.
Lipsey made a similar claim, saying in his court filing that some guards barely attempt to check on inmates.
"Many officers do not even look in my cell when they walk by to log the checks," he wrote. "They simply hit the Guard One button and keep going."
Lipsey, who is described in corrections department documents as having previously been accused of attempted murder of an inmate, battery on a peace officer and possession of a deadly weapon, added that before the Guard1 system came into use he had never experienced the health conditions he blames on his lack of sleep.
"My irritability from sleep deprivation has also led to conflict in my relationship with my mother," he wrote. "She has cut off contact with me, causing me severe emotional distress.
"I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, and the sleep deprivation make my symptoms worse.
"When I am subjected to Guard One checks, I experience more hallucinations, hear voices and suffer greater depression and thoughts of self-harm."
