Legal News

Judge slams ICE decision to withhold treatment for prisoner with penile cancer

By Jason Siegel

A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that immigration officials' alleged denial of medical treatment or testing to a detainee who then died of penile cancer was "beyond cruel and unusual" punishment, the Los Angeles Times reported.

U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson slammed government officials in his decision on Tuesday, claiming they repeatedly refused a biopsy of a growing lesion on the Francisco Castaneda's penis for 11 months, offering antihistamines, ibuprofen and extra boxer shorts instead. Castaneda's family is seeking financial damages.

Pregerson said public health officials were "deliberatively indifferent" to Castaneda's condition and were attempting "to sidestep responsibility for what appears to be, if the evidence holds up, one of the most, if not the most, egregious Eighth Amendment violations the Court has ever encountered."

Castaneda, a Salvadoran immigrant without legal residency, was put in prison for possessing methamphetamine with intent to sell and transferred to immigration custody. The American Civil Liberties Union intervened and a biopsy was scheduled in February 2007, but he was released a few days before the procedure, reports the L.A. Times. His was amputated, chemotherapy proved unsuccessful and he died last month.

"You should not have to have your penis fall off to get medical treatment from the government," Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson told the Times.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on March 13, 2008 (boomark / email).