Iowa’s Prison System Settles Lawsuits and Agrees to Use More Reliable and Fair Disciplinary, Drug-Testing Procedures

Des Moines, Iowa — Today, Iowa's State Appeal Board approved a settlement agreement between the Iowa Department of Corrections (DOC) and three Iowa inmates, represented by the ACLU of Iowa, who wrongly faced discipline for unreliable, false-positive drug tests.

All three are residents at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville, but the agreement will impact the prison system statewide.

The ACLU of Iowa was joined in these cases by co-counsel Leah Patton with Patton Legal Services, LLC.

The two main provisions of the settlement are that it will 1) improve the fairness and accuracy of the DOC discipline system and 2) allow better, more scientifically reliable evidence on which that discipline is based.

The Iowa DOC had been using only immunoassay field drug tests, which are not scientifically reliable unless they also have laboratory confirmation. Further, the prison knew that the inmates had been prescribed medication that can cause false positives for the illicit drugs they were accused of taking.

If an inmate is accused of a serious violation of the prison rules, they go before an administrative law judge, who reviews the evidence.

Initially, prison administrative law judges (ALJs) found each of the three guilty of disciplinary violations. Major disciplinary violations, which include testing positive for drugs, can result in harsh punishment. That punishment can include reduced earned time, which means an inmate can serve a longer sentence; solitary confinement; the loss of educational opportunities; paid work; and other privileges critically important to the lives and well-being of inmates.

After the three inmates were found guilty, they appealed to the warden, who upheld the discipline. In Spring 2024, they then filed a special type of civil legal action called a disciplinary post-conviction relief application in the Polk County District Court, in part, asking the court to reverse the discipline imposed. As part of today’s settlement, the DOC has expunged the three inmates' disciplinary records related to the faulty drug tests, and also agreed to two important things that will affect inmates throughout the Iowa prison system:

1) It agreed to improve the "burden of proof" the prison must meet to prove to an ALJ that an inmate is guilty of a major disciplinary violation. Previously, prisons had to show merely "some evidence" to prove a violation. Moving forward, prisons must demonstrate the "greater weight of evidence," a higher standard also used by federal prisons.

This includes, at a minimum:

• Every inmate charged with any major disciplinary infraction may make a statement and present documentary evidence on their own behalf.
• The administrative law judge will weigh all evidence presented during their review–not just the prison’s.
• The administrative law judge will consider whether evidence is reliable, and if there is conflicting evidence, the judge will decide the charges based on the greater weight of the evidence.

2) The DOC will use a more scientifically accurate process for drug testing. The tests the prison has used are field drug tests, which were designed as rapid screening tools, with a fairly high rate of false positives.

They aren’t considered reliable for medical treatment or employment-based testing purposes, and must be confirmed by more reliable, lab-based testing methods. The prison hadn’t been doing or even allowing those follow-up lab tests. After today’s settlement agreement, the prison will now allow inmates to have field drug tests confirmed with a more reliable lab test.

Thomas Story, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Iowa, said, "We are appreciative of our clients and the Department of Corrections for the progress that has been made to ensure reliable disciplinary processes are used moving forward. All inmates must follow the rules in prison. But no matter what crime someone is convicted of, all inmates retain certain constitutional rights, including due process and a prison disciplinary system that is fair, accurate, and reliable.

"It's also important to note that these changes will apply not just to our clients but all prison inmates statewide moving forward. Wasting public dollars on scientifically unreliable testing and blocking an inmate’s access to rehabilitative programs when they are innocent of the charges filed serves no one. By requiring drug testing to be reliable, this change serves all interests–the inmates, the prisons, and the public."