'Unconstitutionally cruel treatment': Michigan prisoner seeks release from solitary confinement after 35 years
LANSING, Mich. – A Michigan prisoner who has been held in solitary confinement for an astounding 35 years is asking a federal judge to order state officials to release him to the general population.
James Lamont "Money Mont" Miller, 56, alleges he has been singled out for unconstitutionally cruel treatment because of his conviction for murdering a corrections officer, in prison, back in 1987.
Prison officials refuse to provide him mental health treatment, require him to wear chains to leave his cell, "leaving permanent scars and marks around his ankles and wrists," unlawfully strip search him before and after he enters a caged yard for solo exercise, and every 15 minutes use a baton to bang a button on his cell door that creates a beeping sound, Miller said.
Miller — who has acted violently toward prison staff both before and after he fatally stabbed 38-year-old Corrections Officer Jack Budd — said in a March court filing the cell where he is forced to spend 23 hours a day, alone, at Ionia Correctional Facility, is filthy because prison officials refuse to give him the cleaning materials other prisoners are supplied.
Many experts say solitary confinement that lasts more than a few weeks — let alone years — amounts to torture, and that it is particularly harmful for prisoners such as Miller who suffer from mental illness.
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"This is a horrific situation," and points to the need for alternative ways to manage prisoners such as Miller, said Lois Pullano, executive director of Citizens for Prison Reform. "It's appalling to think that we don't have better oversight."
Miller, who has no lawyer because Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker declined his request to appoint one for him, referred to himself in the third person in his lawsuit, writing: "Whenever he requested to be released to general prison population, not only did they deny his request, but they also told him that he was going to die in long-term segregation because he was never going to ever get out."
Miller’s time in solitary is not an all-time U.S. record, but for prisoners currently behind bars, he is among those having spent the longest consecutive time alone.
In 2016, Albert Woodfox was released after spending 43 years in solitary in Louisiana. Like Miller, Woodfox had been convicted of killing a prison guard. Herman Wallace, another prisoner who spent about 40 years in solitary in Louisiana and was convicted along with Woodfox, died in 2013, soon after his release.
The Texas Observer reported in 2020 that 18 Texas prisoners, at that time, had been in solitary for more than 30 years.
Chris Gautz, a spokesman for Michigan Department of Corrections Director Heidi Washington, was asked Wednesday to identify the current Michigan prisoner who has been held in segregation the longest. He could not answer that question as of Friday, or confirm whether it was Miller.
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Prison officials deny some of Miller's allegations and neither admit nor deny others. They say many of his claims are barred on grounds including governmental immunity, the statute of limitations, and his alleged failure to fully pursue his complaints internally, through multi-step formal complaints to prison officials, before going to court, where he is seeking $250,000 in damages.
On a central issue, they admit Miller has been "kept in administrative segregation due to his inability to be managed in a less restrictive environment."
Miller's "security arrangements are appropriate and necessary and not in violation of any constitutional or statutory rights," Assistant Attorney General Michael Dean said.
In a 1997 interview with the Detroit Free Press, a part of the Paste BN Network, Miller gave a detailed description of how he planned the killing of Budd by surprising the officer with prison shanks he had hidden in his cell. He expressed no remorse.
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"I don't like looking at them. I hate all of them," he said of the prison staff.
Miller told the newspaper he expected to die in solitary confinement because prison officials know that if he ever resumed a normal prison life, the "staff will try to kill me or I'll kill one of them."
"I just stay in my own little world," he said. "They can control you physically, but they can't control your mind. That's why they're frightened of me — because they can't break me."
Miller, who grew up on Detroit's west side, has been in trouble since before he was 12, when he beat up one of his teachers and dropped out of school. He spent time at the Wayne County Youth Home and a juvenile detention facility in Adrian, Michigan, and has been in continuous custody since 1983, not long after he said he fathered a child and suffered a gunshot wound to the hip while dealing drugs.
Even before he murdered Budd, Miller received a life sentence for severely assaulting another prison employee in 1986, and he received a two- to four-year sentence for assaulting a third prison employee in 1985, Dean said in a court filing.
"Finally, Miller received his second life sentence the year after he murdered Jack Budd for Prisoner Possessing Weapons during his assault of a fourth prison employee on Sept. 13, 1988," Dean wrote.
In the 1988 incident, Miller jammed a sharpened piece of his vent through the door slot and into an officer's chest, officials said.
After the 1988 assault, Miller accumulated 98 major prison misconduct violations through May 2019, including ones for assault and battery, possession of a weapon, and inciting a riot, Dean said.
Lynsey Mukomel, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Dana Nessel, did not respond to an email seeking comment.
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Some states, such as Minnesota, have caps on how much time a prisoner can spend in segregation. Michigan does not. Gautz said earlier this year that there were 904 Michigan prisoners in administrative segregation at the end of January, and the department agrees it is important to reduce both the number of prisoners being isolated and how long they are held that way, especially if they have mental illness.
Pullano said there is no doubt Miller has committed heinous crimes, but when "punishment becomes the treatment" for the mentally ill, it does not work, and keeping prisoners isolated only provokes more antisocial behavior.
"I believe that Mr. Miller still has some small piece of good in him, if it hasn't been beaten down, or out, by now," she said.
Though Miller will likely never get out, many more Michigan prisoners are held in segregation and most of them will one day return to society, where they will cause more problems if they do not first receive treatment for their mental illnesses, she said.
The state needs to look at alternative management methods for certain prisoners, including therapeutic cells where prisoners have outlets such as music, art, or use of computer tablets, Pullano said.
Byron Osborn, president of the Michigan Corrections Organization, said criminals are sent to prison after a determination that they must be removed from society. Prison is its own society, and segregation is used to isolate those who create dangers in that society as well, he said.
Though the union might support certain efforts to limit the use of segregation, it would never support its abolition, particularly for prisoners such as Miller, Osborn said.
"There are people that are extremely dangerous, have no intention of changing, and will lash out, given the opportunity," he said.
Follow Paul Egan on Twitter: @paulegan4.