From USP Tucson, Keith Raniere filed an “inmate request to the prison staff.”
“I request immediate release from the SHU,” Raniere wrote to the staff.
According to BOP rules, “all inmates will have the opportunity to address written questions, requests, or concerns to any Bureau employee…. Inmates shall be permitted to make written requests to staff using the Inmate Request to Staff form (BP-S148).”
Raniere placed the following request for administrative relief on the record.
He wrote:
I request immediate release from the SHU, where I have been held without valid justification for 200 days and counting, and for 300 days cumulatively since my 2021 designation to USP-Tucson.
My rights continue to be violated by the intentional, knowing, calculated, deliberate, and indifferent actions and omissions of BOP personnel at USP Tuscon and others to: BOP Rules, Regulations, and Program Statements; applicable laws, rules, and regulations; the Mandela Rules and intentional norms; and the US Constitution.
The real length and conditions of my SHU confinement are torture. Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678 (1978).
My SHU placement is pretextual and retaliatory. I have a pending Rule 33 motion for a new trial based on unprecedented misconduct by government agents. U.S. v. Raniere, 1:18-CR-00204-NGG-VMS, Doc. 1169 (EDNY).
I believe bad actors in the DOJ and its sub-agencies (EO-AUSA, EDNY-AUSA, FBI, BOP) are acting in concert to retaliate against me for exposing corruption in my case that may undermine public credibility in these institutions.
The BOP has deprived me of my due process rights and the ability to confer with counsel.
In May, President Biden issued an Executive Order expressing inmates should be “free from prolonged segregation,” as the use of restrictive housing has surged in recent years.
The new BOP Director Colette S. Peters has said she is looking into this trend. I am unsure if she has reviewed my situation, but it may afford her the opportunity to implement her ideals, as she did in her career in Oregon.
Keith Raniere resides behind the fences at USP Tucson.
Raniere came to USP Tucson a little more than two years ago, on January 21, 2021.
Out of approximately 750 days at USP Tucson, he spent about 300 in the SHU.
On July 26, 2022, USP Tucson assigned him to the SHU after Maurice Adonis Withers attacked him. In 2021, prison officials transferred him to the SHU for about 100 days, after an inmate passed a message from Raniere to Nicki Clyne on the telephone.
In his request for release from the SHU, Raniere cites the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, known as the “Nelson Mandela Rules,” and a 1978 Supreme Court decision in Hutto v. Finney.
Mandela Rules,though not binding on the BOP, restrict the use of solitary confinement to a measure of last resort, used only in exceptional circumstances.
In the SHU, prisoners are restricted in small cells, usually containing a bunk bed, toilet, and sink, for 23-24 hours each day. Inmates eat in their cell. Meals are usually served cold. SHU inmates have limited access to mail, commissary, exercise, reading material, telephone, fresh air, and contact with lawyers.
The Hutto v. Finney litigation, cited by Raniere, lasted from 1969 to 1978. It was the first successful lawsuit filed by an inmate against a correctional institution. The findings of unconstitutionality in the Arkansas prison system, as cruel and unusual punishment, focus on the Supreme Court determining that punitive isolation for extended periods violates the Eighth Amendment.
Opposing the case, fighting for the right of Arkansans to keep prisoners in the SHU for as long as they wish, was then-Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton.
Raniere also cited President Biden’s May 25, Executive Order on “Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety.”
In the Executive Order, Biden stated:
It is also the policy of my Administration to ensure that conditions of confinement are safe and humane, and that those who are incarcerated are not subjected to unnecessary or excessive uses of force, are free from prolonged segregation, and have access to quality health care, including substance use disorder care and mental health care.
An NBC News analysis in September found that the number of inmates held in the SHU went up 7% since the president signed the executive order and up more than 11% from the Trump administration.
About 11,000 federal inmates are in restrictive housing.
Raniere also invoked the name of Collette S. Peters, the BOP director since August.
Peters was formerly the director of the Oregon Department of Correction. She took over Oregon’s prisons in 2012 at a time when the Oregon Department of Corrections faced criticism for over-reliance on solitary confinement.
In 2017, Peters visited Norway to learn about a “rehabilitation-focused prison philosophy.”
She launched an initiative called “The Oregon Way,” to “humanize and normalize” life in prison.
Her agency opened a Japanese garden at the state penitentiary, dismantled death row, and encouraged the state legislature to pass a bill replacing the word “inmates” with “adults in custody.”
On August 2, 2022, Attorney General Garland officiated the Investiture of Colette S. Peters as the 12th Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Peters said at her swearing-in in August, “Our job is not to make good inmates. It’s to make good neighbors.”
Raniere’s 200-day stay in the SHU without an infraction or request for protective custody is contrary to the Norway model and long enough to be considered torture by the United Nations.
While the confinement Raniere is experiencing is contrary to Peters’ goals of reducing the use of the SHU, it remains to be seen whether the director will personally weigh in on this matter.
Raniere has expressed concern that the BOP will transfer him to a CMU unit, where communications with the outside world would be severely restricted. CMUs are usually used to house Muslim terrorists.
Raniere opposes a transfer to a CMU facility and seeks to remain in USP Tucson in general population or get a designation from the BOP allowing him to reside in a medium or low-security prison.
