Attorney Fees Against “Untruthful” Oregon Guard Vacated
by Mark Wilson
The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed a $30,000 attorney fee award against a prison guard, holding that her claims were not “unreasonable, frivolous, and without foundation.”
In April 2007, Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC) guard Ronda Park discovered a set ...
No PRA Sanctions for Washington Prisoners Absent Bad Faith
by Mark Wilson
On October 29, 2013, the Washington State Court of Appeals held that prisoners are ineligible for Public Records Act (PRA) violation sanctions, without a showing of bad faith. The court also held that prison surveillance video recordings are ...
Prisoner Admits to Scheme to Defraud Catholic Church, Gets 33 More Months in Prison
by Mark Wilson
A prisoner serving a lengthy sentence for a series of Pennsylvania bank robberies has been sentenced to additional time in federal prison after perpetrating a scheme to defraud the Catholic Church by falsely accusing priests in four different cities of molesting him, in one case while he was supposedly a teenaged runaway.
Federal officials said Shamont Lyle Sapp, 51, is the same person who gained notoriety in 2011 when he sued comedians Jamie Foxx and Tyler Perry for $1 million each, falsely claiming that they stole his idea for a movie project titled “Skank Robbers.”
Sapp hatched his scheme against the Catholic Church while serving time from 2005 to 2010, authorities said, making false claims against priests in Portland, Oregon; Spokane, Washington; Covington, Kentucky; and Tucson, Arizona. According to court records, Sapp took advantage of pending bankruptcies in Catholic dioceses that he researched while incarcerated.
“In two of his fraudulent claims, [Sapp] accused priests who already had been publicly revealed as serial sex offenders,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer wrote in a sentencing memo. “In the other two claims, [he] named totally innocent ...
Ninth Circuit: Damages Suit Not Heck-barred by Retrial
by Mark Wilson
In “an unusual case,” the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a California murder conviction on retrial did not bar a damages suit for the first conviction, which had been illegally obtained.
In 1995, Frederick Lee Jackson was convicted of rape and murder based, in part, on a taped interview by Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Barnes. Although Jackson was in custody, Barnes did not provide a Miranda warning before interviewing him.
During the interview, Jackson contradicted his earlier statements and placed himself at the murder scene, saying he “just happened to be there.” Jurors heard both statements and convicted him of rape and murder.
“Deeming the question ‘refreshingly simple,’” the Ninth Circuit vacated only the murder conviction, holding “that Jackson’s rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), were violated when Barnes interrogated him while he was in custody without giving him the requisite Miranda warnings.”
After his conviction was vacated but before he was retried, Jackson filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court seeking millions of dollars in damages. He alleged that Barnes’ failure to Mirandize him during the interrogation violated his ...
$150,000 Award after New York Prisoner’s Family Denied Right of Sepulcher
by Mark Wilson
On February 6, 2014, a New York Court of Claims found that prison officials did not exercise reasonable efforts to locate a deceased prisoner’s next of kin before burying him in a prison cemetery.
William Loughlin ...
Oregon: Medical Neglect of Diabetic Detainee Nets $260,000 Settlement
by Mark Wilson
A former Oregon jail detainee received $260,000 to settle his lawsuit alleging inadequate medical care.
Since 2008, Franklin Millner has suffered from “Charcot foot” – a softening of the foot bones due to nerve damage from diabetes. The ...
Homicidal Prisoner Fails to Derail Oregon Death Penalty Moratorium
by Mark Wilson
By most any standard, Craig Dennis Bjork, 53, meets the definition of an undeniably dangerous person. Apparently unimpressed by his first five murders, one can only hope that prison officials finally recognize he’s “for real” in the wake of his sixth homicide.
In 1982, Bjork, aka Craig Dennis Jackson, was sentenced to three consecutive life terms for the strangulation deaths of his 19-year old girlfriend, Ramona Yurkew, his two young sons, Joseph and Jason, and Gwendolyn Johnson, 22. All four bodies were found stuffed under beds in his Minneapolis apartment.
“It was like you took the lid off hell, looked inside then put it back on,” said defense attorney Kevin Burke.
In 1984, while serving his life sentences, Bjork threatened to kill a prison guard, asking “What can they do? Give me more time?” Minnesota does not have the death penalty.
While in solitary confinement at MCF Stillwater, Bjork wrote the warden in July 1996, describing himself as “homicidal” and depressed.
“I’m very close to committing mass murder in Stillwater,” Bjork stated. “Trust me minimum 3 bodies, I’d go for 10 & come real close. So how do ...
Utah Sex Offender Prison Population Grows under Harsher Laws while Treatment Programs Lag
by Mark Wilson and Christopher Zoukis
Fueled by the notion “once a predator, always a predator,” harsher laws have flooded Utah state prisons with sex offenders sentenced to longer and longer prison terms, while funding for sex offender treatment programs has remained static. The dilemma has state lawmakers in a bind, caught between finding ways to reduce the state’s growing prison population and still taking the politically popular approach of appearing to be tough on sex offenders by locking them up with only limited access to treatment.
The eventual result, warned one member of Utah’s Board of Pardons and Parole, will be releasing everyone except murderers and sex offenders due to a lack of space in prison for anyone else.
According to research compiled by the Pew Charitable Trusts, sex offenders now make up one-third of Utah’s prison population – the single largest group of prisoners in state prisons, and nearly double the number of sex offenders imprisoned since 1996. Yet during that same time period, the state’s $1 million annual allocation for its sex offender treatment unit containing 200 beds has remained unchanged.
In 2012, Utah ...
Deaf Prisoner Settles Discrimination Suit for $150,000
by Mark Wilson
To settle what some are describing as a landmark disability discrimination case, Oregon prison officials agreed to pay a deaf prisoner $150,000.
Merle Baldridge, 42, is deaf and uses American Sign Language (ASL) as his primary form of communication. That ...
Iran Orders Execution Survivor Hospitalized and Re-Hanged Once Well Enough
by Mark Wilson
“The horrific prospect of this man facing a second hanging, after having gone through the whole ordeal already once, merely underlines the cruelty and inhumanity of the death penalty,” observed Philip Luther, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program.
An Iranian man identified as Alireza M., 37, was sentenced to death after being convicted of a drug offense. The man dangled for 12 minutes from a noose suspended from a crane at a prison in the northeastern Iranian town of Bojnurd in September 2013, according to Iranian news accounts.
A physician pronounced him dead. As his family drove to the prison morgue to collect his remains the next day, however, staff discovered that he was still breathing.
The presiding judge ordered the man hospitalized and re-hanged “once medical staff confirm his health condition is good enough,” according to Iranian news accounts.
The order “does appear to be setting a precedent, to the best of our knowledge, in cases of hanging,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
Calling the order unconscionable, Amnesty International pleaded with ...
