ACLU seeks to help teen murder suspect

COEUR d'ALENE - The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging a judge's decision to house a child accused of murder in adult solitary confinement at the Kootenai County jail.

The Idaho ACLU on Friday filed a brief in support of Public Defender John Adams' petition seeking to return Eldon Samuel - who turned 15 a week ago - to the county's Juvenile Detention Center.

"I don't think we've ever had to participate in a case like this before," said Idaho ACLU Attorney Richard Alan Eppink. "It's just so shocking this would happen."

First District Judge Benjamin Simpson on July 1 ordered Samuel, charged with killing his father and 13-year-old brother, be transferred to the jail and held in solitary confinement. Jail and juvenile detention staff and Samuel's guardian ad litem - who described solitary confinement at the jail as worse than Guantanamo Bay - argued against the transfer.

Though Samuel spent much of his time in solitude at the juvenile facility, he had contact with others his age during academic classes and physical education.

According to Adams' petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Samuel is being held "in a small cell where the light never goes out, without ever having been convicted and despite his right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment."

Idaho ACLU Interim Executive Director Leo Morales said keeping Samuel in solitary confinement at the adult jail is akin to punishment before conviction.

"The amount of time that Eldon has been there and the amount of time that he could be is punishment," Morales said. "What the court has said in the past is that's not allowed. He's still on trial and accused of a crime, but he's not convicted."

Though a hearing on the writ of habeas corpus has not been scheduled, Samuel will be arraigned in the criminal case Monday.

He has a right to a speedy trial within six months of Monday's arraignment, but he could waive that right, adding to the amount of time in solitary confinement.

Since his March 24 arrest, Samuel has spent about 70 days in solitary.

"I see him almost every single day and he is deteriorating mentally, emotionally and physically being held in isolation," Adams said. "He's distinctly deteriorating, as would any human being, let alone a child."

According to the ACLU court filing, Samuel is being held in a cinderblock medical holding cell that jail staff have turned into a "makeshift child isolation cell with only a steel bunk and a steel toilet-sink for amenities."

Any time Samuel is let out of the cell, the entire jail goes into lockdown because he is the only child in the jail, according to the court documents. He is let out each day for "showers, exercise on a cement slab, and legal and religious visits."

According to court testimony, Samuel's meals are slid through a slot in his cell door and he eats alone. Samuel cannot see out the windows of his cell, which are covered in blinds, and jail staff can't see in.

He is checked on twice each hour.

According to the ACLU, even adults suffer negative physical and psychological effects in solitary confinement, including hallucinations, increased anxiety, rage and irrational anger, fear, appetite loss and weight loss, heart palpitations, headaches, nightmares, dizziness and self-mutilation.

Children in solitary confinement are at a high risk of suicide, too, according to ACLU research.

"Courts time and time again have said holding children in conditions like this is not constitutional," Eppink said. He said it is "against the principals of justice and liberty and humaneness we expect in the United States."

Adams said he is grateful that the ACLU is using its time and resources to fight Samuel's solitary confinement.

"We as a people, we as a society do not torture our prisoners," Adams said. "We certainly don't torture our children."