by Matt Clarke
On April 7, 2023, a visibly annoyed U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver issued a highly-detailed permanent injunction (PI) specifying what must be done by the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry (DCRR) to meet minimum constitutional standards in providing prisoner healthcare and mental health care, as well as conditions in isolation.
As PLN previously reported, the Court found in June 2022 that healthcare and mental health care in the prison system was “plainly grossly inadequate,” and the conditions in its restrictive housing units were unconstitutional. [See: PLN, Dec. 2022, p.l.]
Before issuing the PI, Judge Silver noted that she was forced to throw out a six-year-old settlement because DCRR showed little interest in making the improvements it agreed to, despite $2.5 million in contempt-of-court fines.
“Given this history, the Court cannot impose an injunction that is even minutely ambiguous,” Silver wrote, “because Defendants have proven they will exploit any ambiguity to the maximum extent possible.”
The final PI includes “a specific number of key personnel that must be hired.” That number was determined by court-appointed experts Dr. Marc Stern, Dr. Bart Abplanalp and John McGrath. The court ordered DCRR to immediately hire the specified number of ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 8, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reinstated claims by Pennsylvania child support debtors jailed for civil contempt, who argued they were unfairly forced to perform unsafe and nearly uncompensated labor at a privately-operated, county-owned recycling center.
William Burrell, Jr. was jailed in Lackawanna County in 2014 for civil contempt after failing to make court-ordered child support payments. He qualified for the jail’s work-release program, which would allow him to pay off his child support debt and be released from jail rather than serving the entire length of his civil contempt sentence. However, the county had a policy requiring anyone seeking work-release to first work half of their sentence at the recycling center owned by the county’s Solid Waste Management Authority (SWMA).
SWMA is operated by a private company, the Lakawanna County Recycling Center, Inc. (LCRR). The firm paid laborers $5 per 8-hour work day – 63¢ per hour – for sorting trash in allegedly dangerous and disgusting conditions, including denying the workers portions of sack meals sent from the jail if they didn’t perform quickly enough.
Burrell filed a pro se federal civil rights lawsuit in September 2014, alleging the ...
by Matt Clarke
Corizon Heath, Inc. has engaged in legal maneuvers over the course of the past year that are intended to limit how much it must pay on over $38 million in debt to companies that supplied it with staffing, medical supplies and real estate, as well as plaintiffs and attorneys who won lawsuits against the firm and government entities it had agreed to indemnify for lawsuit losses.
Corizon began the first step of the legal maneuvers known as the “Texas 2-step” in April 2022 when it converted to a Texas corporation. At the time, Corizon’s headquarters was in Tennessee, and it was not conducting any business in Texas. The sole reason it became a Texas corporation was to perform a “divisional merger,” a process permitted under Texas law in which a corporation divides into multiple successor corporations with assets and liabilities assigned to the successors as it sees fit under Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code, §§ 10.00l(a), 10.003.
In this case, Corizon survived and retained all of its expired contracts and their corresponding liabilities plus $1 million in cash, the right to collect on its insurance policies, and the right to collect up to $4 million under a “funding ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 21, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reinstated a former federal prisoner’s lawsuit under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb et seq., alleging religiously motivated harassment by guards with the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) caused him to cease daily Muslim prayer at his workplace in the prison commissary and then cost him his job.
In 2009, Charles Mack was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Loretto, Pennsylvania. A devout Muslim as well as a paid worker in the prison’s commissary, he tried to observe the basic tenet of his faith that he pray daily at five specified times, as his work duties allowed. Mack typically went to the back corner of the commissary to pray for about five minutes.
Mack was easily identifiable as a devout Muslim because he wore religious headgear and was exempted from handling pork products in the commissary. Most of the guards assigned to the commissary had no problem with his prayers, he said. But two guards, Doug Roberts and Samuel Venslosky, allegedly targeted Mack for religious animus. Because of his religious beliefs, the two guards – who were assigned to ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 25, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report finding the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPSC) was deliberately indifferent to the due-process rights of state prisoners who were held long past their release dates. DOJ also found that DPSC has been aware of this problem for more than a decade yet refused to take effective steps to ensure the timely release of its prisoners.
The report noted that between January and April 2022, 1,108 (26.8%) of the 4,135 prisoners DPSC released were held past their release dates. The median over-detention was 29 days, but 31% were over-detained at least 60 days and 24% at least 90 days.
Although Louisiana does not compensate over-detained prisoners, it does have to pay to keep them incarcerated – at least $2.5 million a year, DOJ estimated. That is because DPSC uses 104 local parish jails to incarcerate about half of its 26,000 prisoners, as well as privately operated lockups where it contracts for bed space. All prisoners held at jails, however, remain in custody of DPSC, which is responsible for their timely release.
It is this extensive use of local jails, along with an ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 24, 2023, an Oklahoma federal jury awarded $14 million in compensatory damages and $68 million in punitive damages to the estate of a woman who died of a heart attack in the Tulsa County Jail, despite repeatedly requesting medical care to no avail.
Gwendolyn Young, 52, had serious medical and mental health conditions requiring prescribed medication plus regular monitoring and evaluation when she was booked into the jail on October 16, 2012. She suffered from diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia, and she had a prior history of cardiovascular disease and strokes. Correctional Healthcare Companies (CHC) - now Wellpath - was under contract to provide healthcare to the jail’s detainees.
According to the complaint later filed on her behalf, Young repeatedly told jailers and CHC staff that she was experiencing nausea and vomiting, along with pain in her abdomen and lower back. But her complaints were ignored. Two hours before she died in a segregation cell, Young told jail staff she was vomiting blood. A jailer looked at the vomit and told her there was “not enough blood” – in fact he said it looked like Kool-Aid. Mere minutes before she expired, Young told a nurse she ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 22, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) held that its decision in Lynch v. Arizona, 578 U.S. 613 (2016), was a “significant change” in the law as that term is used in Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1(g). The decision cleared the way for a death row prisoner to pursue state habeas corpus relief. In issuing it, the high court also put down an apparent rebellion by the Arizona Supreme Court (ASC).
Almost three decades ago, the Court held that capital juries must be advised when a defendant is ineligible for parole, in Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154 (1994). But the Arizona high court ignored that ruling. So in its 2016 decision in Lynch, the Court specifically said its earlier decision applied to Arizona’s capital sentencing scheme – overturning binding ASC precedent which consistently ignored what SCOTUS had ruled for almost 30 years. Incredibly, though, the Arizona high court remained stubbornly opposed.
John Montenegro Cruz was convicted of capital murder. The only aggravating factor found by the jury was that the victim was a police officer. The 1994 version of Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. Sec. 41-1604.09(I)(1) eliminated ...
by Matthew Clarke
We all know celebrities accused ofcrimes, including actors, musicians, sports figures, business leaders, politicians and journalists. If they’re prosecuted at all, the punishment is rarely harsh. The rich and famous simply aren’t treated like everyone else.
However, the rise of the #metoo movement has undermined celebrity privilege ...
by Matthew Clarke
On September 30, 2022, a lawsuit was dismissed against Pennsylvania’s Dauphin County, after a former pretrial detainee at the county lockup reached a $142,500 settlement on claims that a jail guard knocked her unconscious and smashed her jaw while she was handcuffed.
Barbara Barngetuny, then 26, was ...
by Matthew Clarke
On December 15, 2022, the U.S. Courtof Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a district court erred when it dismissed an Illinois prisoner’s lawsuit for misjoinder of defendants and claims. Finding the claims and defendants were in fact properly joined, the Court reinstated the prisoner’s complaint. ...
