After a man died last month at the immigrant detention center in Tacoma, activists and members of Congress sharply criticized federal authorities for holding the 61-year-old Trinidad and Tobago citizen in solitary confinement for almost the entire four years he was detained.
It turns out Charles Leo Daniel was held far longer in solitary — more than 13 years — because before entering the Tacoma facility he spent nearly a decade in isolation while in state prisons.
Daniel’s roughly nine years and eight months in prison solitary represents the majority of the 16 years he spent in state Department of Corrections custody between 2004 and 2020 on a second-degree murder conviction, according to a timeline released to The Seattle Times by the agency.
The years Daniel spent in a single-person cell, allowed out for only an hour a day, typically occurred in long stints as he was moved among four prisons. One solitary stretch lasted almost five years.
DOC said it isolated Daniel for disciplinary reasons but did not have more information readily available.
The agency’s disclosure about Daniel’s time in state custody calls attention to the broad use of solitary confinement, not just by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And it raises more questions about whether Daniel’s prolonged periods of solitary contributed to his March 7 death at the Northwest ICE Processing Center.
The Pierce County medical examiner has not stated a cause of death.
Numerous studies have shown solitary confinement causes and exacerbates mental health problems, raising the risk of suicide.
A 2021 state Board of Health report noted physical and mental responses to solitary described in interviews with DOC staffers, mental health professionals and others. They cited conditions including sensory deprivation, “constant illumination or very dark environments,” lack of physical activity and people “screaming, yelling, crying or throwing feces.”
“I think it’s pretty clear that national and international standards have determined that prolonged stays in solitary confinement are unhealthy,” said Dr. Marc Stern, a former DOC health official who now acts as a consultant for federal agencies.
A United Nations spokesperson said in 2011 no one should be held in solitary for longer than 15 days.
Daniel’s extraordinarily long isolation in state custody may have been a function of past practices. In 2021, DOC stopped using solitary confinement as a punishment, reserving its use mainly for those it sees at risk of harming themselves or others. Even before that, the agency began limiting its use overall.
“DOC has already drastically reduced the use of solitary confinement over the past decade and, contingent on funding the agency receives from the Legislature, has pledged to reduce its use by an additional 90%,” the agency said in a statement.
“There are some extremely violent individuals in our custody, though, and in some cases there is no safe alternative for housing them other than in solitary confinement,” the statement continued.
The agency held 562 people in what it calls “restrictive housing” as of September. Of those, 214 fell into a category DOC considers solitary confinement, or “maximum custody.” An additional 348 were held in administrative segregation, a shorter-term placement, sometimes during investigations for alleged infractions, that allows people more time out of their cells and more social interaction, according to DOC spokesperson Chris Wright.
Rachael Seevers, an attorney with a Disability Rights Washington program focusing on incarcerated individuals, said in her experience, people in administrative segregation still typically spend upward of 22 hours in their cells.
Reflecting on new DOC information about Daniel, she said, “Ten years is a very long time to be in solitary confinement.” Yet, she added, “there are absolutely other people in the Washington system who have also been in solitary confinement for that extended period. I wouldn’t say it’s the norm, but I would absolutely say that happens here.”
DOC’s latest restrictive housing report shows eight people were held for more than 500 days in the most severe restrictive housing.
Seevers said alternatives exist. If someone is in a mental health crisis, “what you want to do is give them mental health services, not isolate them into a concrete box.”
Daniel, according to an analysis of federal data analyzed by the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights, was judged by ICE to have serious mental health issues. The center did not receive information about Daniel using his name but pieced together information from an ICE news release with agency data sets it and other groups obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.
It was the center’s analysis that initially determined Daniel had been in solitary for almost four years at the detention center. U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Seattle Democrat and ranking member of the House immigration subcommittee, said ICE confirmed to her that Daniel was isolated for 1,418 days. Jayapal added she planned to send a letter calling for answers from the Department of Homeland Security about “the misuse of solitary confinement.”
Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, along with 10 other senators, last week signed a letter to top Homeland Security and ICE officials also alleging misuse of solitary confinement and asking pointed questions in light of Daniel’s death. The senators asked how many people ICE has placed in solitary since 2017, and steps it has taken to limit the practice, among other questions.
Murray separately called for an investigation by an agency other than ICE, currently charged with issuing findings about Daniel’s death.
ICE has released limited details about Daniel but said individuals in administrative segregation generally have the same privileges as others, including recreation, visitation and access to the law library.
Detention center leadership, along with medical and mental health professionals, meet weekly to review cases and consider a change in status because segregation placements “are not intended to be long-term housing,” an ICE spokesperson said.
But Daniel may have wanted it to be. The Center for Human Rights determined that, according to ICE records, the Trinidad and Tobago citizen requested a segregated cell at the detention center.
Such a placement could be a good thing if a person feels anxious and unsafe in the general population, said Stern, the former DOC health official. It’s also possible, he said, that Daniel’s nearly 10 years in prison isolation could have worsened mental health problems that led to the request.
Some people have been in solitary for so long that it makes them nervous to be around others, said Seevers, with Disability Rights Washington. She would like to see correctional institutions look into the reasons why someone requests isolation and work with that person on a plan to feel safe in the general population.
Little is publicly known about Daniel’s background.
He was a musician in 2003 renting a room from friend and colleague Raymond Lindsay, according to a police statement contained in King County Superior Court records. The two had a falling out and got into a fight. Daniel claimed they wrestled for a kitchen knife before he fatally stabbed Lindsay.
ICE said it came across Daniel in 2015 when he was at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, Mason County. Washington prisons, then and now, provide information to ICE about incarcerated people. (The 2019 Keep Washington Working Act prohibits local agencies from cooperating with immigration enforcement, but DOC is an exception.)
ICE took custody of Daniel in 2020. It was not immediately clear why he served only 16 years of an 18-year sentence.
An immigration judge ordered Daniel deported that year, according to ICE. The agency did not say in its statement why the order was not carried out, and has declined to provide additional information.
Some of those most critical of ICE also expressed concern about Daniel’s prolonged isolation in state custody. Jayapal said it was “further troubling.”
Activist Maru Mora Villalpando, who went on a hunger strike for 12 days after Daniel’s death, said DOC’s disclosure indicates Daniel had “already been tortured” before he was imprisoned by ICE. “
Others were already focused on DOC’s isolation policies. State Rep. Strom Peterson, an Edmonds Democrat, said he has been working for years on legislation that would ensure people in solitary confinement leave their cell for at least three or four hours a day for mental health treatment and other forms of human interaction.
He has yet to see his bill pass but plans to reintroduce it next year.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the latest figure for the number of people held for more than 500 days in Washington prisons’ most severe restrictive housing.