Mississippi Private Prisons Have High Prisoner Assault Rates

by Matt Clarke

A report on the number of prisoners assaulted in Mississippi prisons shows that the assault rates in private prisons average two to three times the rate of assaults in state-run prisons. One extreme example, the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility ...

Massachusetts Supreme Court Rules on Fallout Procedures Implemented After Crime Lab Scandal

by Matt Clarke

On July 22, 2013, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts issued an opinion in three cases dealing with the validity of some of the procedures adopted to handle the flood of post-conviction matters in criminal cases for which disgraced Hinton Crime Lab chemist Ann Dookhan was the primary or confirmatory chemist. The procedures required incarcerated defendants to first file a motion to stay execution of their sentences (motion to stay), and then file a subsequent motion for a new trial.

Dookhan was involved in at least 34,000 cases. To help handle the anticipated flood of post-conviction matters, the Chief Justice of the Superior Court appointed five retired Superior Court judges as Special Judicial Magistrates (Magistrates). The three cases resulted in the following three questions being raised on appeal and referred to the Supreme Court for deposition:

1) Does a Magistrate or superior court judge have the authority to allow a motion to stay while a motion for a new trial is pending?

2) Does a Magistrate have the authority to reconsider and allow a motion to stay when a judge has previously denied a similar motion ...

“Pocket Parks” Push Sex Offenders Out of Town

by Matt Clarke

The latest strategy of residents and politicians attempting to drive registered sex offenders (RSOs) out of residential neighborhoods is to create tiny “pocket parks” in residential neighborhoods. One place where this strategy is being employed is the Harbor Gateway section of Los Angeles, California.

California state law prohibits RSOs from residing within 2,000 feet of a school or public park. This restriction has already driven RSOs out of most of Los Angeles. One exception was Harbor Gateway. Because it was possible for RSOs to live there, parole officers placed many sex offender parolees in Harbor Gateway. This led to 30 paroled sex offenders being housed in the same Harbor Gateway apartment building.

Harbor Gateway parents who were picking up their children at the bus stop began seeing men with GPS ankle monitors on the streets. They told their kids to avoid these men and then they reacted by building a pocket park of less than 1,000 square feet at the corner of a busy intersection. Although it is unlikely that children will use the poorly situated park's jungle gym, it may nonetheless serve its purpose, to break up the ...

Supreme Court Upholds Virginia FOIA's Exclusion of Non-Virginians

by Matt Clarke

On April 29, 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the provision of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) providing that "all public records shall be open to inspection and copying by any citizens of ...

Phoenix Jail Prisoners Victims in Fake Illness Scam

by Matt Clarke

Margarita Zaragoza was in the process of bonding out her former cellmate using her car as collateral when she found out the truth—she had been had. And Zaragoza was not alone. Other prisoners at the Phoenix jail had also been taken in by Kelly Wasko, a smooth-talking con artist.

The prisoners say Wasko, 41, befriended them all while telling them sad stories about how she had multiple sclerosis and was in jail for taking a $1,500 charity check from the Salvation Army. She made promises to pay them back for anything they gave her. Her apparent intent was to scam them out of items from the jail commissary, such as envelopes and food.

"I'm in shock. What do I believe? I'm still in shock," said Zaragoza. "She's a sweet person and I wouldn't look at her like she would do something like this."

After her release Zaragoza checked online and discovered that Wasko was actually in jail for allegedly faking cancer to solicit over $12,000 in donations from family and friends online.

"She never takes pills, never takes medicine. She's healthy," Zaragoza said. "I called the bondsman…I find out ...

San Antonio Police Kill Probation Department/Jail Security Guard

by Matt Clarke

Jimmy James Garza, Jr. was 31 years old and had worked at the Bexar County Community Supervision and Corrections Department in San Antonio, Texas as a security monitor for ten years when he was shot and killed by police responding to a complaint that he had beaten his former girlfriend.

Despite having broken up with Garza following an eight-month relationship, the girlfriend, 34, a probation officer since 2007, met with Garza at a bar. Things seemed normal and he offered to drive her home. During the drive he began beating her.

"Everything was OK until he suddenly began beating her while he was driving," according to a police report. The report went on to say that Garza handcuffed his former girlfriend and repeatedly told her "this was going to be his last night alive." The report said that he dragged her by her handcuffed wrists inside his house and threatened to shoot her with a handgun. Eventually, she convinced him that her injuries required medical attention and suggested that she tell hospital officials that she was injured in a fall. Garza agreed to take her to the hospital, but ...

$425,000 Settlement in Suit over South Carolina Jail's Failure to Treat Diabetic Prisoner

by Matt Clarke

In June 2013, Sumter County, South Carolina and Southern Health Partners, Inc. (SHP), the contract provider of health care for prisoners at the Sumter-Lee Regional Detention Center (the jail), settled a lawsuit brought by ...

Texas Judge Sentenced For Concealing Evidence of Innocence

by Matt Clarke

In a week-long legal proceeding held in April 2013, special prosecutor Rusty Hardin presented evidence against then-sitting Williamson County District Judge Ken Anderson that as a prosecutor Anderson had suppressed evidence of innocence which resulted in the wrongful conviction ...

Texas Leads the Nation in Both Executions and Exonerations

by Matt Clarke

Texas has long been notorious for applying the death penalty, executing more prisoners than any other state. Between 1976 and September 1, 2015, Texas carried out 528 executions – nearly five times as many as neighboring Oklahoma, which ranked second in the U.S. according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

More recently, however, Texas has become known for the flip side of the capital punishment coin – leading the nation in the number of exonerations, passing the most generous compensation package for wrongfully convicted prisoners of any other state, and enacting laws to help prevent wrongful convictions and hold prosecutors responsible.

From 1994 to 2014, Texas saw 52 prisoners exonerated after DNA evidence revealed they did not commit the crimes for which they had been convicted and sentenced, according to the Innocence Project. Counting all wrongful convictions, including those not involving DNA evidence, there have been 215 confirmed exonerations in Texas.

“The big story for the year is that more prosecutors are working hard to identify and investigate claims of innocence,” said Samuel Gross, who authored a 2014 report for the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE). “And many ...

Jails in Trouble as IRS Investigates Tax-Exempt Bonds

by Matt Clarke

Jails financed with tax-exempt revenue bonds, including numerous facilities in Texas, are scrambling to sell or refinance their debt following investigations by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) into whether the bonds are properly classified as tax exempt. County officials ...