Inmates not getting healthy diet, Nevada Supreme Court rules

The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled prison officials aren’t providing inmates with a healthy diet.

Justices Michael Cherry, Ron Parraguirre and Lidia Stiglich agreed with inmate Robert Stockmeier that corrections officials failed to report the diet wasn’t healthy and to show standards for determining nutritional adequacy were followed, including the recommended daily allowances and other standards set by the Food and Nutrition board of the National Academy of Medicine. As a result, they write, the record indicates excessive levels of fat and sodium.

They rejected the department’s argument sodium is a necessary nutrient and therefore higher levels of sodium don’t render the diet inadequate.

“The standard proffered does not deem adequate a diet with an unlimited quantity of sodium,” the order states. “It is plain that a nutritionally adequate diet is not simply one that has some quantity of necessary macronutrients as many nutrients that are necessary in small quantities are dangerous in large quantities.”

Despite previous court orders to report proper standards were followed, the justices ruled corrections and the state’s chief medical officer still aren’t showing a standard was followed.

Saying statute doesn’t require corrections to follow a specific standard, they ruled they “must actually apply whatever standard it purportedly relies upon.”

The chief medical officer, they ruled, “failed to show that it’s reporting applied any standards in assessing nutritional adequacy,” and therefore failed to comply with statutory reporting requirements.