A transgender woman who was previously incarcerated is suing the Missouri Department of Corrections for placing her in solitary confinement for more than six years because she is living with HIV.

The former inmate, known as Jane Roe, was housed at the Jefferson City Correctional Center between 2015 and 2021. During her time in custody, she was placed in solitary confinement because her HIV status was deemed to make her a danger to others. 

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, alleges the Missouri Department of Corrections’ policy dealing with individuals who have HIV runs counter to modern-day understandings of the disease — including the fact that it is difficult to transmit the HIV virus if a person regularly takes antiretroviral medication — and does not provide individualized assessments that would have otherwise allowed Roe, and other HIV-positive inmates like her, to avoid solitary confinement.

The lawsuit alleges that by holding Roe in solitary confinement without “meaningful review,” the Department of Corrections violated her Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, as well as her Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection and due process, because of her HIV status.

The lawsuit also alleges that she was denied the benefits of services, programs, and activities to which she was entitled, under both the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, due to her HIV status.

Roe is asking that the Missouri Department of Corrections’ policy regarding solitary confinement be declared unconstitutional and that the department be barred permanently from seeking to enforce that policy.

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The lawsuit further seeks to have her prison records expunged of any reference to alleged violations of the policy, to ensure that if she is ever returned to custody, she will not be subjected to “heightened scrutiny” and returned to solitary confinement.

Roe is also asking for a jury trial, and is seeking an undisclosed amount in damages, as well as payment of legal costs and attorneys’ fees.

Roe initially came into contact with the legal system after running away from a police officer attempting to arrest her on a warrant for misdemeanor stealing.

The officer chased her down, and during a subsequent struggle, Roe bit the officer.

Although she was virally suppressed and was unlikely to transmit the HIV virus to the officer, Roe was charged with assault, as well as risking infection with HIV, under an outdated state law that effectively criminalizes people with HIV. 

Roe was released on probation in 2012 but returned to prison in March 2014 for a probation violation, remaining in custody until 2022, when she was released on parole.

Throughout her time in prison, she continued to receive and be treated with antiretroviral medication, which controlled the virus and reduced the risk of transmission. 

But in 2015, Roe was attacked by her cellmate, who attempted to sexually assault her.

Due to their altercation, despite having been the victim of the attempted rape, Roe was deemed an “immediate or long-term danger to other defenders” due to her HIV status and was placed in solitary confinement. 

In solitary, Roe spent 24 hours a day, four days a week, in a 5-foot-by-10-foot cell, which she was permitted to leave for one hour on the remaining three days.

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She was subjected to extreme cold, as well as chemical irritants that were used by the guards to control other rowdy inmates in solitary confinement, and her cell was often covered in mold and water from other prisoners’ toilets that had overflowed.

Department of Corrections officials never conducted an individualized assessment of Roe’s health, HIV status, or the reduced likelihood of transmission while receiving antiretroviral therapy.

Officials also refused to allow Roe to present evidence on those topics, or call witnesses or medical professionals to testify to the risk she allegedly posed to other inmates.

Enlisting the help of Lambda Legal, the MacArthur Justice Center, and law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon, Roe sued the Department of Corrections over being kept in solitary confinement for years. (The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has declared that solitary confinement lasting beyond 15 days constitutes torture or cruel, inhumane, and or degrading treatment in violation of international human rights law.)

Richard Saenz, senior attorney at Lambda Legal, asserted that the Missouri Department of Corrections’ policy for determining whether to hold a person in solitary confinement is both discriminatory and unconstitutional for the way it singles out people living with HIV for severe punishment simply by dint of their serostatus.

“The Missouri Department of Corrections knew of the harm that [Roe] suffered, including attempts to complete suicide, and also the physical and mental damages that she suffered,” Saenz told Metro Weekly. “It’s well known that the use of solitary confinement, especially for a prolonged period of time, can have a severe impact on someone’s health, and that’s been accepted by courts and within the medical field when looking at the issue of solitary confinement.”

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Saenz noted that the Department of Corrections’ policy for placing people with HIV in solitary confinement appears to have been motivated by concerns that inmates might be sexually active or might not be adhering to treatment, thus increasing the possibility of transmission.

But those concerns could have been allayed, or at least addressed, had they bothered to conduct an individualized assessment of Roe’s situation.

“What it really comes down to is because she is HIV-positive, the policy allowed them to keep her in solitary confinement for that for a long time without conducting an actual review. And it continued for years, and pretty much was just rubber-stamped whenever [Roe’s situation] was reviewed,” Saenz added.

Saenz told Metro Weekly that the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over court cases from Missouri, has previously found in several cases that prison officials are expected to conduct meaningful reviews before placing an inmate in solitary confinement.

Similarly, in a 2005 case, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that prison officials cannot confine inmates in long-term solitary confinement without first giving them the opportunity to challenge their placement.

As such, he’s hopeful that the courts will be sympathetic toward — and ultimately side with — Roe.

“Ms. Roe was trapped in isolation with no way to challenge her conditions,” Shubra Ohri, an attorney for the MacArthur Justice Center, said in a statement. “Six years of that led Ms. Roe to self-harm, suicidal ideation and actual suicide attempts. This tracks with widespread consensus among the human rights experts, psychologists, physicians and mental health authorities who say solitary confinement is torturous and should be abolished.”