When California voters approved Proposition 83 (Jessica’s Law) in 2006, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated that enforcement of the law’s provisions – which included GPS monitoring and banning sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park where children “regularly gather” – would cost taxpayers “a ...
According to statistics released by Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) Director Ari Zavaras in a briefing to state lawmakers in February 2009, state prisons saw an increase in levels of violence among prisoners in fiscal year 2007-08 relative to the levels reported the previous year.
Although the rise in violent ...
Sustaining a legal challenge filed by prisoners Michael A. Morales and Mitchell Sims, both on death row, the California Court of Appeal has held that the state’s lethal injection protocol, contained in San Quentin’s Operational Procedure 770 (OP 770), is invalid because it was adopted without compliance with the public ...
A $36 million program designed to provide medical care to jail prisoners in Orange County, California is severely mismanaged, according to an internal performance audit. The audit found that the county Health Care Agency (HCA), which administers the jail’s medical program, produces unreliable data and statistics; that contracts with medical ...
Almost thirty years after it began, federal court supervision over conditions at San Quentin’s death row – the nation’s largest, now housing 685 condemned prisoners – came to an end in April 2009.
A group of death-sentenced prisoners filed suit in 1979 complaining about filthy and decrepit conditions on death ...
On February 25, 2009, after questions were raised about the failure of his office to fully insure courthouse construction projects, Garlan VanHook resigned from his position as executive director of the Dept. of Facilities for Kentucky’s court system. Adding intrigue to the mix, VanHook confirmed that his brother, Willie, was ...
The North Carolina judiciary and legislature have both taken steps to clear the way to resume executions, which have remained dormant in the state for the past three years.
On May 1, 2009, a split North Carolina Supreme Court held that the N.C. Medical Board had overstepped its authority by ...
In the latest chapter of a 15-year-old class-action lawsuit, a U.S. District Court held that the passage of Proposition 9 by California voters on November 4, 2008 could not override a stipulated permanent injunction entered four years earlier for the purpose of reforming the state’s parole revocation procedures. The court ...
As California’s budget crisis deepens, local law enforcement agencies are looking for creative ways to cover shortfalls in their budgets. Increasingly, county sheriffs are raiding funds intended by the Legislature to be expended “primarily for the benefit, education and welfare of the inmates confined within the jail.” Referred to as ...
An investigation by the California Bureau of State Audits has revealed that Prison Health Care Services, the office overseeing prison health care reform in California, violated legal requirements and bypassed internal controls when it acquired $26.7 million in information technology (“IT”) goods and services without inviting competitive bids. The investigation, ...
