A paraplegic serving a 100-year prison term for murdering a Bigfork businessman wants a Helena jury to decide whether the temporary impoundment of his wheelchair violated his constitutional rights.

Ted Ernst claims that his rights were violated under the Fifth, Eighth and 14th amendments and under the American with Disabilities Act. More specifically, he said that depriving him of his specialized wheelchair for four days, while providing him with a standard prison model, was cruel and unusual punishment and violated his right to due process.

The specialized wheelchair was confiscated after Ernst was implicated in an escape plan and sent to a maximum security cell on Aug. 6, 2001, for allegedly disrupting officers during a search of his cell.

Ernst stayed in the high-security cell until Aug. 9, when his wheelchair was returned.

He claims that the standard model was too large for his frame and had no mechanism for securing his feet to the footpads. This caused his feet to slide off the footpads and drag on the floor, causing him injuries, according to the lawsuit.

In his mostly hand-written arguments before the court, Ernst added that the older wheelchair also made it difficult for him to reach the sink to wash his hands after using his catheter. In addition, neither the chair nor the prison mattress had the specialized cushions he needs to avoid pressure sores caused by low circulation.

"The absence of these items is mentally frightful and degrading, but more importantly it is a health risk unto death that every paraplegic must take special precautions every day," Ernst wrote.

Ernst said it normally takes no longer than five minutes for an officer to search the wheelchair to ensure it's free from contraband.

The six prison officials named in the lawsuit -- including Warden Mike Mahoney -- responded by saying that any injuries Ernst suffered were self-inflicted because he refused to use the wheelchair that was provided to him.

A jury trial was set for Feb. 9 in the Paul G. Hatfield federal courthouse in Helena, but in an order signed on Monday, Federal Magistrate Judge Leif Erickson postponed the trial while he considers a request for a summary judgment -- basically, a ruling in their favor based on written arguments -- made last week by the prison officials.

Ernst was convicted of deliberate homicide after a jury trial in 2001 of shooting Larry Streeter seven times after he caught Ernst and his brother burglarizing a neighbor's house on Christmas in 1997. The brother, Jesse Ernst, spent less than a year in a state mental hospital in connection with the case; he was found not guilty of murder by reason of mental disease or defect.