Appeals Court Hears DOC Bid to Vacate Middlesex Judge’s Order Releasing Inmates Held in Segregation

The Massachusetts Appeals Court heard oral argument Jan. 14 on an appeal by the Department of Correction seeking to vacate a Middlesex Superior Court preliminary injunction that ordered the immediate release of incarcerated people the lower court identified as being held in segregation for more than 90 days.

Judge Marguerite Grant, sitting with Judges Robert Brennan and Robert Toon, presided over a Zoom portion of the sitting in which attorneys for the parties and one plaintiff argued the scope and factual basis of the superior court’s order. Each side had 15 minutes to argue.

The central question was whether the Middlesex court’s injunction — which ordered "immediate release of all inmates, including named plaintiffs," according to the lower-court endorsement — was supported by adequate factual findings and whether it applied beyond MCI Concord.

Attorney Timothy Hooley, representing the defendants/appellants and the Department of Correction (which he described as representing former Commissioner Meechee, Superintendent Dean Gray, and Deputy Superintendent Patrice Holliman), told the Appeals Court, "The answer to that question is a clear yes," arguing the superior court abused its discretion and issued an overbroad injunction lacking adequate factual support. Hooley said the superior court’s language — "all inmates" and references to "segregation" — risked being read to apply department-wide rather than only to the Behavioral Assessment Unit (BAU) at MCI Concord, a unit that has since closed and whose inmates were transferred to other institutions.

Hooley told the court the record below did not support a finding that BAUs or the Concord unit constituted restrictive housing under the statutory definition, and he pointed to a single-justice stay and prior superior-court opinions that, in the department’s view, found BAUs were not restrictive housing. He also said the department had updated its BAU/SAU policies on Jan. 6, 2025, to provide more frequent review and more robust due-process protections, including a 60-day opportunity to appear before an interdisciplinary team.

Plaintiff Tony B. Gaskins, appearing from custody, told the panel the conditions in BAUs are solitary confinement regardless of the label and argued the injunction was consistent with statutory protections. "We're in solitary confinement," Gaskins said. He described what he characterized as a longstanding pattern of the DOC renaming units and keeping conditions that deny statutorily mandated protections. Gaskins said, "We were in segregation way over 90 days. We never got 1 single hearing," and argued the superior court acted within the bounds of the law and the statutory scheme when it ordered releases for those beyond the 90-day threshold.

The court and counsel also discussed statutory and regulatory sources cited during argument. Counsel debated whether conditions described in affidavits met the statutory definition of restrictive housing, referencing the definition in Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 127 and regulatory provisions in 103 CMR 420 and 103 CMR 421. Counsel and the panel also discussed related litigation around the Commonwealth, including a class action case identified in argument as Evelyn v. Jenkins (Suffolk Superior Court, docket number cited in briefing) and other superior-court decisions that defense counsel said supported the department’s posture.

Both sides framed the dispute in terms of competing institutional and individual interests. Defense counsel emphasized staff safety and the risk of releasing individuals the department had designated for restrictive housing-like placement without clearer factual findings or hearings. Gaskins and the plaintiffs stressed statutory mandates and what they said were repeated DOC practices of renaming units without changing conditions, thereby avoiding procedural protections the legislature and regulators intended.

The panel questioned both sides about whether the superior court exceeded the relief plaintiffs sought at the preliminary-injunction hearing, whether the injunction could reasonably be read to apply outside MCI Concord, and the effect of the department’s updated policies (60-day reviews replacing 90-day reviews). Neither party reported a final decision from the Appeals Court at the close of the Zoom argument.

The Appeals Court took the matter under advisement; no ruling was announced at the session’s close. The court’s eventual decision will determine whether the Middlesex Superior Court’s injunction stands, whether the order’s scope is limited to MCI Concord or applies more broadly, and what procedural protections are required for placements the courts may deem restrictive housing.

Provenance: transcript of the Jan. 14, 2025 sitting of the Massachusetts Appeals Court (Zoom portion).