Conal Doyle is lead counsel in Castaneda v. U.S., a landmark civil rights case that is set for trial in 2011. The United States has admitted that government medical providers caused the penile amputation and death of Francisco Castaneda, an immigration detainee. The damages will be determined by a federal judge in trial next year. Mr. Doyle argued an immunity issue before the United States Supreme Court in March 2010, Hui v. Castaneda, 130 S.Ct. 1845 (2010), and the case has been remanded for trial against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Case Facts:
Francisco Castaneda, an immigrant from El Salvador, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from March 2006 through February 2007. Immediately upon arriving at SDCF, Mr. Castaneda complained to medical staff about a bleeding lesion on his penis. United States Public Health Service medical personnel, senior ICE officers, and administrators within the Division of Immigration Health Services (DIHS) knew that the lesion on Mr. Castaneda’s penis urgently required a biopsy to determine whether he had penile cancer. Not only did Mr. Castaneda repeatedly file urgent requests for medical care, but he resorted to showing guards and medical officials his bloody underwear and bed sheets. The only treatment he received for his terminal disease was fresh boxer shorts, ibuprofen, laxatives, and antibiotics.
Eventually, after multiple evaluations by outside urologists, Mr. Castaneda learned that the end-result of eleven months of governmental indifference was terminal penile cancer. As a result of efforts by the ACLU’s National Prison Project, DIHS finally approved and scheduled a biopsy for Mr. Castaneda. A couple of days before the appointment, however, ICE suddenly released him from custody – thereby releasing the federal government from financial responsibility for the medical care and treatment that Mr. Castaneda would likely – and, as it turns out, did – require.
Frightened by his condition, Mr. Castaneda went to the emergency room at a local hospital in Los Angeles, where doctors documented that he had a 4.5 centimeter long tumor on his penis. A biopsy confirmed that he had invasive squamous cell carcinoma of the penis.
Mr. Castaneda’s penis was amputated on Valentine’s Day, 2007.
As Mr. Castaneda underwent chemotherapy in hopes of arresting the cancer and saving his life, Willoughby Doyle LLP and Public Justice P.C. filed a lawsuit on his behalf in November 2007 against the U.S. government, several federal and California state officials, and a California physician.
“This case is the quintessential example of what the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment was intended to prevent,” said lead counsel Conal Doyle of Willoughby Doyle, LLP in Oakland, California. “Federal officials will never be able to adequately explain their refusal to follow the recommendations and orders of the doctors to whom they sent Mr. Castenada for evaluation.”
Mr. Castaneda died in February 2008, one year after he was released from custody, diagnosed with cancer, and submitted to radical surgery in what turned out to be a futile attempt to arrest the cancer and save his life. He was thirty-six years old.
Castaneda’s case drew national attention when he shared his horror story with a House subcommittee in October 2007, explaining that California state officials and U.S. immigration officials had repeatedly refused him reasonable and humane medical care, including a critical biopsy, even though it had been recommended by state, federal, and private doctors.
