Barry Rayner

9152 Taylorsville Rd. # 111

Louisville, KY 40299
October 03, 2018

Mayor Curtis Hockenbury

City Hall
P. O. Box 400
634 Conestoga Parkway
Shepherdsville, KY 40165
email: mhock@shepcity.com

Re: Unconstitutional detainment of Inmate Barry Rayner

Dear Mayor Hockenbury:

My names is Barry Rayner and I am writing regarding conditions of confinement within the
Bullitt County Detention Center (“BCDC”) that violate state and federal law as well as the
United States Constitution. I was reincarceated, after I posted a $10,000.00 cash bond, for
allegedly violating the Bullitt County Monitored Conditional Release (MCR) program.

In my opinion, the order by Judge Rodney D. Burress compelling me to submit to urinalysis,

without issuance of a warrant based on probable cause violates by civil rights. This MCR
program, in light of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, is prima facie
unconstitutional. See for example, United States v. Scott, 450 F. 3d 863 (9th Cir. 2005) and
Blomstrom v. Tripp, 402 P. 3d 831 (Wash. 2017)

Furthermore, the amount of inmates presently housed in BCDC threaten my safety and wellbeing
and that at full capacity Bullitt County Detention Center was built to hold 250. At the present
time inmate population, as of October 01, 2018, is at 331.How crowded Bullitt County Detention
Center is at any moment can significantly affect living conditions and pose a physical threat to
any persons therein.

Many of the inmates that are being presently detained, like my son, are sleeping and eating on
the floor near toilets and showers. Also, many of the present BCDC inmates are pre-trial and
have already been released on bail, but have been illegally reincarcerated due to a so-called
“violations of the unconstitutional “MCR” Drug Testing Program”. Under this above referenced
Bullitt County drug testing program, the judiciary and Bullitt County pretrial release program,
demanded my son, surrender his 4th Amendment in exchange for exercising his right under the
8th Amendment rights. Both of the rights are secured under the Constitution of the United States
and the Kentucky Constitution and coercion to surrender them under the threat of physical harm
presented by the conditions at BCDC.
Confronted with the violations of civil, the attorney, Lori Rakes, refused to make a motion to the
court about the 4th Amendment violations, stating that the attorneys all know it’s true, claiming
that she will not go against Judge Buress, because he wants the drug testing program. Despite
being paid $2,500.00 by me to represent my son and his co-defendant, She refused to
communicate with me or my son for months until his codefendant hired and then withdrew from
the case citing conflict of interest. The fact is, she is intimidated by Judge Buress and afraid to
challenge the unconstitutionality of the MCR Drug Testing Program. On September 24, 2018,
after I was appointed a public defender, he also refused to argue the MCR Program 4th
Amendment violation.

Nevertheless, pursuant to the 4th Amendment my son has a right to be secure in his persons,
houses, papers, and effects and warrant shall not issue but upon probable cause; this includes his
bodily fluids. The 8th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, secures a person’s
right to post bail and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

Consequently, the intolerable conditions of confinement that violate the 8th Amendment are
being used as the continued threat of physical force being employed, under color of law, by
Bullitt County judiciary and the BCDC, to coerce and intimidate inmates, like my son, to
surrender their civil rights. This conduct may not only constitute a conspiracy to deny civil
rights under 42 USC §§1983, 1985, but, it appears also to be a crime under the Kentucky
Revised Statutes penal statutes. As detailed below, these sources reveal multiple violations of
rights guaranteed by the U.S. and Kentucky constitutions, and are crimes under the Kentucky
law and federal civil rights laws.

The Crime of Criminal Coercion, Menacing and Abuse in Kentucky

Coercion, or as a verb “to coerce,” is the act of creating “compulsion by physical force or threat
of physical force.” Black’s Law Dictionary 106 (7th ed. 2001). Its harm has been characterized
by the United States Supreme Court as the “interference” of civil liberties and rights of another
that occur when they are forced – through the use of threats or intimidation – to commit an act or
not commit an act which they have “a legal right to do or to abstain from doing.” Sekhar v. U.S.,
133 S.Ct. 2720, 2725 (2013) Although this may have historically been the scope of the offense,
in modern day Kentucky the unlawful threatening of another to perform an otherwise lawful act
is only one form of the crime of Coercion as defined by the Kentucky penal Law 509.080(1) A
person is guilty of criminal coercion when with intent to compel another person to engage in or
refrain from conduct, he unlawfully threatens to: (a) Commit any crime; or (d)Take or withhold
action as an official or cause an official to take or withhold action. Criminal coercion is a Class
A misdemeanor.

Under Kentucky penal code, the threat by the court and BCDC to subject a person to violation
his 8th Amendment right for not surrendering his 4th Amendment right on demand may be a
violation of 508.050 (1) Menacing. A person is guilty of menacing when he intentionally
places another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury. It is well
established that overcrowded jails and prison cause violence, excessive use of force by
corrections officers unable to keep order in the chaos created by overcrowding, poor medical
care, and intolerable living conditions. In Kentucky, under KRS 508.100 (1) Criminal abuse in
the first degree,(1)A person is guilty of criminal abuse in the first degree when he intentionally
abuses another person or permits another person of whom he has actual custody to be
abused and thereby: (b)Places him in a situation that may cause him serious physical injury; or
(c)Causes torture, cruel confinement or cruel punishment; Pursuant to KRS 508.100(2)Criminal
abuse in the first degree is a Class C felony.

Conspiracy to Violate Civil Rights under Color of Law

Under federal law, 18 USC 241, conspiracy against rights and 18 USC 242 Deprivations of
Rights under Color of Law both are statutes that carry terms of imprisonment for willful
violations. 18 USC 241 makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress,
threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory or district in the free exercise or
enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the
United States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).

18 USC 242, makes it a crime for any person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance,
regulation, or custom to willfully deprive or cause to be deprived from any person those rights,
privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the U.S.. This
definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council
persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by
laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.

Also, it is a crime under 18 U.S.C. 241 to conspire 'to injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate
(under color of state law, my son four citizens of the United States) in the free exercise and
enjoyment of the rights and privileges secured under the 4th and protected by the Fourteenth
Amendment. In the 1967 case Camara v. Mun., the Court stated that the purpose of the Fourth
Amendment, enforceable against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, was to protect
citizens against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” 387 U.S. 523, 528 (1967). Outside of
carefully defined contours, an unconsented, warrantless search is per se unreasonable. Id. at
528–29. The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 17 of the
Kentucky Constitution both forbid cruel and unusual punishment and seizures without a warrant.

After being reincarcerated for alleged violations of the so-called MCR Drug Testing Program,
my son was threatened inside Bullitt County Detention Center and threatened with being subject
to thrown into an isolation cell, if he did not submit to a drug test once inside the jail. Out of fear
of being harmed by the jail authorities with isolation cell, without notice or hearing, my son was
for forced to give his body fluids to the MCR Drug Testing Program.
 Overcrowding and 8th Amendment Violation

The U.S. Supreme Court held in 1994 in Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994), that a prison
official's "deliberate indifference" to a substantial risk of serious harm to an inmate violates the
cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment. Because of current overcrowded
conditions in American prisons and jails like BCDC, it is being acknowledged by criminologists
that an overcrowded correctional facility routinely compromises the health, safety, and life of
inmates. Environmental factors in a jail and prison can turn a short stay or “sentence to appear
like a death sentence; poor health care, unsanitary living conditions, high levels of violence,” and
a large number of sick people, some with chronic diseases, living in close proximity threatens the
well-being of inmates. (See:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237080114_Why_a_Jail_or_Prison_Sentence_is_incre
asingly_like_a_Death_Sentence [accessed Oct 02 2018].

The continued pattern and practice of filling BCDC beyond capacity by violating 4th Amendment
rights and illegally jailing pretrial defendants on bond is illegal and results in overcrowding the
BCDC. Consequently, the deficient conditions at BCDC facilities which hamper effective
delivery of medical, mental health care and invites legal action.

Current overcrowded conditions at BCDC are the result of filling it with indigent drug offenders,
who are not provided or offered any mental health care. They are then either unable to make
bond or released on bond and placed on MCR Drug Testing Program. When they test positive for
drugs they are then constantly recycled back into to the system. The overcrowded conditions in
the jails that jeopardize the lives of those serving a sentence and potentially innocent Kentucky
citizens either waiting trial or unable to make bond, many of which that are suffering from drug
addiction from underlying mental disorders.

Individuals with drug problems should be properly treated, not used merely as pawns, exploited
by the courts in order to feed large global insurance companies with bail bonds and provide
captive consumers for the BCDC commissary or generate customers for its exploitative phone
company contractors. Inmates forced into the MCR Drug Program are in need of medical care,
rehabilitative treatment and not criminal abuse, coercion and pecuniary exploitation.

I urge you to immediately declare an emergency pursuant to KRS 39A.100, and appoint a special
prosecutor to investigate the BCDC jailer and Judge Rodney Buress for KRS 508.100 (1)
Criminal abuse in the first degree and start an investigation to uncover the unnamed accomplices
in BCDC, release the all prisoners being currently held on MCR Drug violations and allocate
emergency funding to build a bigger jail, if necessary. After BCDC releases inmates illegally
detained on MCR Drug Program violations, a new jail may not be necessary.

By violating the 4th Amendment rights of sick, drug acts, many of them mentally ill, and then jail
them in the overcrowded conditions of BCDC without regards to their mental conditions
routinely violates federal and state law by: (1) delay or denial of needed medical care, (2) delay
or denial of needed mental health care, (3) violation of the rights of prisoners with disabilities
under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

The drug court model designed in Florida in 1989 is practiced correctly in every state that
adopted the model; treating both the mental illness and drug addiction in one (1) court. But, not
in Kentucky; the Kentucky drug courts ignore inmates who present in court with obvious co-
occurring drug and mental health disorders. Rather than treat these sick individuals Kentucky
officials violate their 4th Amendment rights and release them without treatment to the MCR Drug
Program resulting in a never ending revolving door in and out of jail.

I hope this matter can be resolved without resort to legal action but you must be advised that I
am committed to filing suit if there are not immediate and concrete steps taken by your
administration. Please advise within ten (10) days of your intentions.

Sincerely,

_________________________________

Barry W. Rayner

CC: Governor Matt Bevinn,

Andy Beshear, Attorney General

Jim Erwin, Commissioner KY Department of Correction

ACLU of Kentucky

Russell Webber Russell, State Representative Webber

Melanie J. Roberts, County Judge Executive

John Wooldridge, County Attorney

Shelly Alvey, Commonwealth Attorney

Donnie Tinnell, Bullitt County Sheriff

Martha Knox, Jailer