Federal judge found New York prison system showed 'deliberate indifference' to incarcerated cancer patient's medical needs

On July 31, 2026, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled that officials at the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision acted with "deliberate indifference" in managing the medical care of David Blanding, 61, an incarcerated man held at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, New York. Kaplan issued an injunction ordering DOCCS to develop a treatment plan for Blanding and to report to the court every two weeks on his care, calling the record "nothing short of disgraceful."

Blanding was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2019 and had surgery to remove a tumor in January 2020. A urologist then prescribed immunotherapy to reduce the chance of recurrence, along with a follow-up screening procedure, but Blanding never received either; when he asked prison medical staff why, he was ignored or told he was already getting all the care he needed, according to the ruling. His cancer recurred multiple times in the years that followed. When a 2025 biopsy found he also had prostate cancer, DOCCS did not inform him for nine months — he learned only from his own attorneys, by which point the cancer had advanced to its most dangerous grade.

Kaplan wrote that DOCCS Commissioner Daniel Martuscello and other officials "knowingly disregarded significant risks" to Blanding's health despite years of grievances, letters, and calls from his attorneys, and found a "virtual certainty" that the lapses in care would continue absent a court order. A DOCCS spokesperson said the agency could not comment on an incarcerated person's medical treatment or pending litigation; in court filings the state argued Blanding's care "has hardly been neglectful as he paints it."