by David M. Reutter
On March 28, 2023, the CaliforniaThird District Court of Appeals ordered a lower court to recalculate a prisoner’s custody credits for time spent in a facility to bring the defendant back to competency. The Court’s ruling follows one almost a year earlier by the state Court of Appeals, which found in April 2022 that defendants receiving treatment to restore competency must be given the same opportunity at sentencing for credit whether the time was served in a hospital or in a jail. [See: PLN, Mar. 2023, p.42.]
In the more recent case, a jury found Yarsoslav Viktorvic Shkrabak guilty of assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury upon his mother. Based on the injury she suffered and a prior strike conviction he had for assault with a deadly weapon upon his father, the trial court doubled its sentence.
The Appellate Court’s order addressed two issues, though the Court certified only partial publication of its ruling. The unpublished portion included a motion to dismiss under People v. Superior Court, (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497 (Romero). That case requires the trial court to give “great weight” to the fact that Shkrabak’s “current offense is connected ...
by David Reutter
On January 31, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia approved a $1.325 million settlement in a suit brought by the estate of Darryl Terrell Becton against the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office and its private healthcare contractor at the Arlington County Detention Facility (ACDF), Corizon Health, Inc., as well as a doctor and several nurses the firm employed at the lockup.
During booking into ACDF on September 29, 2020, Becton, 46, informed staff he was an opiate user who also suffered from “hypertension and heart problems,” as the complaint later filed on his behalf recalled. Nurses Lois Ntiamoah and Natasha Toy noted when he turned pale and vomited. A Clinical Opiate Withdrawal Scale (COWS) protocol was ordered, including regular assessments and blood pressure checks.
But that was allegedly botched; the complaint noted that Licensed Practical Nurse Antoine Smith was subsequently charged criminally with falsifying patient records. [See: PLN, Mar. 2022, p.52.] In his cell, his blood pressure skyrocketing, Becton told Ntiamoah early on October 1, 2020, that he was “withdrawing from heroin and fentanyl.”
Becton was then admitted to the medical unit, where Dr. Richard Ashby was admitting practitioner. Ntiamoah again ordered ...
by David M. Reutter
On January 12, 2023, California’s Sixth District Court of Appeal concluded that attorney-client privilege did not apply to a state prisoner’s “kites,” even when included in an envelope addressed to his attorney. Written messages sent in violation of jail rules, the kites were ordered turned over ...
by David Reutter
An Arizona prisoner’s civil rights claim is headed to trial in June 2023, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated it, saying his prison’s policy on material he is allowed cannot be applied inconsistently without trampling his First Amendment liberties.
The suit was brought in federal court for the District of Arizona by Edward Lee Jones, Jr., a prisoner at Arizona State Prison in Eyman. In late 2017 and early 2018, Jones ordered two Nation of Islam books by Elijah Muhammad: Message to the Black Man in America (1965) and The Fall of America (1973). He also ordered six hip-hop and R&B CDs by Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd and Snoop Dogg, among others.
Prison officials determined these items were contraband and confiscated them under Department Order (DO) 914.07. The CDs violated rules prohibiting depiction or promotion of violence, sexual excitement, gangs and drugs, they said, also citing a catchall for items that “may otherwise be detrimental to the safe, secure, and orderly operation of the institution.” The two religious texts were taken for allegedly promoting racism or the superiority of one group.
Jones filed suit pro se in June 2018 under 42 U.S.C. ...
by David M. Reutter
In a decision reached on August 10,2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit stayed the hand that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had reached into the pocket of a federal prisoner in Missouri. Though ultimately Anthony Robinson lost nearly all of the funds in his inmate trust account to make restitution to his victims, the ruling reinforces a similar Court decision reached earlier in the year, putting the burden on courts to determine the source of a prisoner’s funds before deciding whether they can be confiscated. [See: PLN, Dec. 2022, p.60.]
When the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri sentenced Robinson to life imprisonment in 2013 for murder in aid of racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering, it ordered him to pay $14,186.17 in restitution, owed jointly and severally with two co-defendants. The judgment stated that all “criminal monetary penalties are due in full immediately.” However, if that were not possible, “then the defendant shall make payments under” a “minimum payment schedule … at the rate of 50% of funds available to the defendant.”
In May 2021, the government discovered Robinson had $2,753.21 in his inmate trust account ...
by David M. Reutter
On December 14, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit took up the latest in a “slew” of cases by Illinois prisoners alleging they are “housed like cattle” at Menard Correctional Center (MCC), “where cells meant for one person are routinely used to house two,” the Court recalled, “in a policy that Plaintiffs call ‘double-celling.’”
The problem traces back at least to 1980, when the federal court for the Southern District of Illinois found the amount of cell space for each prisoner – 18 to 32 square feet – was inadequate, and it issued injunctive relief. See: Lightfoot v. Walker, 486 F. Supp. 504 (S.D. Ill. 1980). But “[w]hatever the staying power of that injunctive relief may have been,” the Seventh Circuit noted, “by 2010, inmates began filing double-celling suits against Menard once again.”
In a civil rights action filed on behalf of themselves and a putative class of fellow MCC prisoners on August 27, 2018, Corrie Wallace and Rafeal Santos “explain that these tightly packed quarters impact everything from ventilation in the cells, to inmates’ freedom to exercise, to their ability to perform legal research,” the Court continued. However, it added, “this ...
by David M. Reutter
The Supreme Court of Ohio issued a writ of mandamus to a state prisoner on December 15, 2022, awarding $3,000 in statutory damages for records he was denied in violation of the state Public Records Act (PRA) by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC).
Kimani Ware, a prisoner at the Trumbull Correctional Institution (TCI), sent a prison kite to staffer Waylon Wine on June 18, 2021, requesting “a copy of the B-Unit staff schedule.” Wine responded it was posted in Ware’s unit, and no documentation was provided. Then on June 21, 2021, Ware sent two separate public records requests to TCI’s recreation department by prison kite. Another staff member, Tracy Ventura, responded that the recreational schedule was posted “in the blocks” earlier that day, and no documentation was provided.
Ware also sent two kites to Deputy Warden Anthony Davis requesting a copy of the June 17, 2021, memo that was sent to all TCI staff. Davis responded that Ware needed to contact another staff member, Mr. Booth, and no documentation was disclosed. Finally, on June 22, 2022, Ware sent a kite to Wine requesting “a copy of the housing unit split range schedules for ...
by David M. Reutter
On December 16, 2022, a jury in federal court for the District of Colorado awarded $3.5 million to state prisoner Jason Brooks, whose complaint alleged simply that the “offer of adult diapers was not a reasonable accommodation” of his disability by the state Department of Corrections (DOC).
The same district court had earlier dismissed Brooks’ claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. ch. 126 § 12101 et seq. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed that decision, reasoning that “having to sit in soiled diapers among other inmates in the dining hall” left Brooks “at risk of assault.” [See: PLN, May 2022, p. 50.]
Brooks, who was sentenced for securities fraud, suffers from ulcerative colitis, a chronic and incurable disease causing frequent bowel movements that are “urgent, loose, watery, and often bloody,” according to his complaint. The condition is incurable. After a transfer to Fremont Correctional Facility (FCF) in February 2012, he was granted a pass to skip to the head of the chow line at mealtimes so that he could better manage his incontinence. But the pass expired after 30 days, and prison officials refused to renew ...
by David M. Reutter
Once it begins a lethal injection, the Alabama Department of Corrections (DOC) “will attempt to carry out the execution and not stop until it becomes clear that they are likely to run out of time under the death warrant, and during that time, will do anything to obtain intravenous access, without regard to its own lethal injection protocol or the constitutional rights of the condemned.”
That explosive allegation was made in a lawsuit brought by death-row prisoner Kenneth Eugene Smith, 57. He and fellow condemned Alabama prisoner Alan Eugene Miller, also 57, are the only two living people in the U.S. to survive an execution attempt.
On September 22, 2022, DOC executioners poked, prodded, and punctured Miller in the arms, hands, and feet for over two hours before they finally threw in the towel. After that, the state settled with Miller on November 28, 2022, agreeing not to try to kill him again except by nitrogen hypoxia. His chosen method, it became a legally available option five years ago, though DOC still hasn’t developed a protocol for it. [See: PLN, Mar. 2023, p.50.]
But first, without taking steps to review what went wrong at Miller’s ...
by David Reutter
Since the 2022 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in Egbert v. Boule, 142 S. Ct. 1793 (2022), there has been no expansion of the federal government’s liability for civil rights claims that was first extended by an earlier, less reactionary high ...
