A pro se prisoner brought multiple claims against various individuals at the New York State Department of Correctional Services and the Division of Parole.  Koehl claims, inter alia, that Defendants violated his Eighth Amendment right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.  In one instance, Koehl allged that upon release from a hospital, he was placed in a double bunk, and 2 of his 3 bunk mates were chain smokers, who smoked all day and night in the cell.  He spent 60 days in that double bunk. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint.  The District Court  denied the motion as to this claim, ruling that with “regard to this 60 day assignment, Koehl has alleged facts from which it could be inferred that his exposure to secondhand smoke created an unreasonable risk of serious danger to his health and that defendant Ercole was deliberately indifferent to this risk…. Koehl has satisfied the objective prong of the Eighth Amendment analysis.”

2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64466 (U.S.D.C. S.D.N.Y. 2011).