Whistleblower vs. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Officials
Lawsuit alleges retaliation against Bryant Arroyo for exercising rights
Pennsylvania prisoner Bryant Arroyo, a nationally-recognized whistleblower currently incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Pine Grove in Indiana, Pennsylvania, filed a federal lawsuit against Pennsylvania prison officials in May 2024.
The lawsuit alleges that prison officials at two different prisons—SCI Coal Township and SCI Frackville—took systematic retaliatory actions against Arroyo in response to his exercise of his free speech rights. Arroyo has been punitively transferred and thrown in solitary confinement among other punishments.
Specifically, in the 94 page complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Arroyo recounts his efforts to publicize the Department of Corrections’ proposal to eliminate in-person family visits with inmates, his promotion of prisoner rights’ publications within prison, and his organizing of over nine hundred inmates at SCI Mahanoy to stop a coal gasification plant proposed for construction adjacent to the prison, his efforts to have prison publications of various procedures published in Spanish for the use by many Puerto Rican and other Spanish speaking prisoners in Pennsylvania.
In his pro se lawsuit, Arroyo alleges that prison officials at SCI Frackville and SCI Coal Township retaliated against him in response to his advocacy. “As a direct result of Plaintiff Arroyo’s efforts as a social, criminal, and environmental justice advocate and whistleblower, individual prison staff and their supervisors have systematically retaliated against Arroyo, using their official positions to take individual actions which have violated Arroyo’s constitutional rights.” [No. 33]1
Those retaliations included committing Arroyo to Solitary Confinement at both institutions; filing various misconduct charges against him that were fought by Arroyo and ultimately dismissed by multiple prison hearing examiners; denying the entry of inmate rights’ publications into both prisons; denying Arroyo single cell accommodation for his medical disabilities; and transferring him outside of his home region—five hours away from his immediate family members.
Arroyo’s lawsuit was filed against multiple prison officials and employees at both SCI Frackville and SCI Coal Township, including Thomas McGinley, the superintendent of SCI Coal Township. It alleges that those officials and employees violated Arroyo’s First Amendment right to free speech and Arroyo’s Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
“The Defendants, acting…under the color of their official capacity, have subjected Plaintiff Arroyo to the deprivation of his First Amendment constitutional rights by retaliating against Plaintiff Arroyo in response to his exercise of his First Amendment constitutional rights.” [No. 173] Arroyo has constantly been denied publications that have advocated for prisoner rights, such as this one, and Workers World, among others.
Lawsuit demands change
Arroyo, a prolific writer, speaker, and organizer who protests conditions within Pennsylvania prisons, stated that “…this lawsuit is for all Pennsylvania inmates who have attempted to speak out for their own safety, as well as the health and safety of other inmates. It is time that the captive-audience population of Pennsylvania’s prisons be treated as persons with constitutional rights, not just as wards of the state. I hope that my lawsuit will force the Pennsylvania prison system to not only remedy what has happened to me, but that it will result in changes throughout the system for all inmates.”
“Plaintiff Arroyo has a history of legally assisting inmates with advocating for improved prison medical-health conditions throughout the State of Pennsylvania’s prison industrial complex.” [No. 166]
In his lawsuit, Arroyo has requested that the federal court order prison officials to transfer him back to his home region (where his family members, including young grandchildren, can visit with less hardship,) to move him permanently to a single-cell due to his medical disability, to expunge his record of retaliatory misconduct charges and negative comments on his record, and to order the payment of punitive and compensatory damages suffered as a result of the retaliatory actions committed by prison officials at both SCI Frackville and SCI Coal Township.
This author has been in communication with Mr. Arroyo for many years and I have witnessed his constant struggles for justice. Recently, he played a leading role in winning compassionate release from prison for Mr. Bradford Gamble, who was facing hard resistance from the prison authorities to releasing him. Mr. Gamble was able to spend his dying days with family because of Arroyo’s unwavering support and advocacy. Like most prison systems, state and federal, Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections has a very restrictive policy on compassionate release (non-compassionate, for sure!), with few elderly, ill prisoners able to obtain it and die at home.
Bryant Arroyo’s lawsuit, in an introductory statement, lays out who he is:
“Bryant Arroyo, the Plaintiff in this action, has been recognized as one of the nation’s leading Latinx voices for social and environmental justice reform of the prison industrial complex system in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Arroyo, currently serving a life sentence at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution in Pine Grove, has led efforts to organize inmates to guarantee access to clean drinking water at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution Frackville; organized over nine hundred inmates at the State Correctional Institution Mahanoy to stop the construction of a toxic coal gasification plant from being built three hundred feet from the prison yard at that institution; publicized the failure of the prison system to accommodate inmates with disabilities; legally assisted a terminally-ill inmate who was diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer to secure a ‘compassionate release’ in 2022 as the first inmate out of thirteen applicants filing for compassionate release that year to obtain that release, and distributed prisoner rights’ publications to inmate populations.”
The lawsuit is focused on the unlawful punitive retaliation of prison officials and doesn’t deal with the fact that Bryant Arroyo, serving a life sentence, is an innocent prisoner whose conviction for killing a child, was based on junk science. That case still must be fought.
Junk science is becoming more and more exposed and as a result, is leading to the release of prisoners convicted of “shaken baby syndrome,” for example. Melissa Lucio, on Texas Death Row, convicted of killing her baby, is now having her case reconsidered!
Free Bryant Arroyo!
Write to Bryant:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Bryant Arroyo CU #1126
SCI Pine Grove (SCI-Pine Grove)
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
1 The case is Arroyo v. McGinley, et al, Civil Action No. 1:23-cv-01083 (U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania). This article contains quotes from this lawsuit.