Washington DOC Barred from Putting Prisoners on Lockdown and Calling It “Programming”
by Chuck Sharman
In a decision on August 10, 2026, the Washington Court of Appeals, Division I, quashed a policy of the state Department of Corrections (DOC) under which prisoners could be “Assigned to Cell” (ATC)—locked down all day, five days a week—and the DOC could call it “programming.”
Granting the Personal Restraint Petition (PRP) of former prisoner Stephen P. Dowdney, the Court agreed that such Orwellian double-speak ran afoul of the intent of state lawmakers who enacted the requirement for all state prisoners to be assigned to work or programming in RCW 72.09.460.
In 2024, Dowdney was eight years into a 13-year sentence for robbery at Washington State Penitentiary (WSP) when he was issued a disciplinary infraction “for being out of bounds and refusing a direct order,” the Court recalled. He also lost his prison job as a porter. The DOC advised him that he was being placed on ATC “for failure to program,” adding that he would remain on that status until he got a new job or enrolled in other qualifying programming.
After he was found guilty of the infraction, Dowdney submitted a kite to complain that he had been denied due process before being placed on ATC, a restrictive sanction that required him to remain in his cell from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Meanwhile, he was found in a dayroom during the hours of his ATC and issued another infraction, resulting in a further loss of good conduct time. Since that could delay his release, Dowdney then filed a PRP in May 2024, “seeking to vacate the infractions, restore good conduct and earned time, and declare the ‘Assigned to Cell’ program unlawful,” the Court recalled.
The DOC responded that Dowdney’s kite had prompted a review that lifted some of his initial sanctions. The later sanction, prison officials added, should have been issued for violating an order and not for violating the ATC, a “misunderstanding” that was mooted because the prison had voluntarily abandoned use of ATC as programming. As interim Superintendent Robert Jackson explained to fellow DOC employees in an August 2024 memo, “ATC is not supported in policy unfortunately, [and] if we [were to use] ATC, we would have to pay the individual to stay in their cell as a ‘program.’”
“I am not willing to pay someone to stay in their cell and do nothing as a repercussion of doing nothing,” the superintendent declared.
Dowdney was released in July 2025. The following November, he filed a supplemental brief reasserting his claim that use of ATC as programming violated state law. The issue was not moot, he argued, since the DOC could reinstate it at any time—and he was still on community supervision, so he could end up back in prison and subject to it again. Even if the issue were moot, he added, it was one of substantial public interest sufficient to justify intervention.
Citing In re Pers. Restraint of Canter, 35 Wn. App. 2d 798 (2025), the Court accepted Dowdney’s substantial public interest argument. The DOC also had not met its “formidable burden of showing that it is absolutely clear the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur,” the Court said, pointing to Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc., 568 U.S. 85 (2013) (quoting Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Env’t Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167 (2000)). Jackson’s memo showed that he discontinued the policy mainly because he realized it would require him to pay prisoners “to stay in their cell and do nothing.”
So the superintendent’s declaration that it had been abandoned was insufficient. “When the defendant did not cease the challenged behavior until after a suit was brought”—as in this case— “the defendant has a heavier burden to prove abandonment of the wrongful actions,” the Court said, citing State v. Ralph Williams’ N. W. Chrysler Plymouth, Inc., 87 Wn.2d 298 (1976).
As for the ATC policy, the Court continued, it did not matter whether Dowdney’s later infraction was issued for violating it or for violating his earlier sanctions. Rather, “the act of administratively assigning Dowdney to his cell as programming was unlawful.” WSP Deputy Assistant Secretary James Key testified that the assignment of prisoners to their cells is for “a serious infraction”—not programming—requiring a disciplinary hearing that Dowdney never got. “Accordingly, inmates, including Dowdney, cannot be assigned to their cells as programming, and if they are put on ATC status as part of an administrative action, a disciplinary hearing is required.”
Declaring that the “DOC unlawfully used ATC as programming,” the Court granted Dowdney’s petition. See: In re Pers. Restraint of Dowdney, 2026 Wash. App. LEXIS 1846 (Ct. App.).
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