by Mike Brodheim
On August 26, 2010, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law after conducting a hearing to determine whether it was appropriate to terminate the prospective relief provisions of the Clark Remedial Plan (CRP). The CRP ...
Due to a $60 billion budget deficit in fiscal year 2009-2010, California prison officials decided to slash funding for rehabilitative programs for prisoners. And while state employees affected by the resulting layoffs cried foul (and fraud), prison officials claimed the cutbacks would promote efficiency and ultimately reduce crime.
The California ...
by Mike Brodheim
Sick and tired of being gouged by high prison phone rates, Nadia Alvarez and Rachel Fishenfeld, two California residents, filed a consumer class action suit against Global Tel*Link (GTL) in August 2010. GTL, a major telecommunications company that contracts with prisons and jails throughout the country to ...
The Ninth Circuit has ruled that a prisoner threatened with retaliation for filing grievances may prevail on a claim of First Amendment retaliation even when the threat is non-specific and not carried out, and even if the prisoner does not succumb to the threat, so long as the threat would ...
The process by which California’s Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) administers psychological evaluations to parole-eligible prisoners serving life sentences has been questioned by the state Senate and also was the subject of a recent ruling by the Office of Administrative Law (OAL).
Prompted by a petition filed by this PLN ...
According to a report released in June 2010 by the Los Angeles County Office of Independent Review (OIR), a civilian oversight agency, lax internal investigations in the county’s Probation Department have allowed sworn probation officers to commit serious acts of misconduct while employed at juvenile detention facilities, yet avoid disciplinary ...
The findings of a Virginia grand jury convened in September 2007 to investigate “conditions that involve or tend to promote criminal activity” at the Henry County Jail were released to the public on February 1, 2010.
After interviewing current and former members of the Henry County Sheriff’s Department, investigators and ...
In response to the California Prison Industry Board’s request for an opinion, the Attorney General’s office concluded that while the Board may create a personnel system separate from the state’s constitutionally-protected civil service system, sufficient evidence had not been advanced by the Board or the state legislature to justify a ...
In a strongly worded opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of a motion filed by California state officials to terminate the receivership established in 2006 to oversee and manage delivery of medical care to prisoners in the custody of the California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). ...
In an official-capacity action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy D. Baca, the plaintiffs alleged they remained in the custody of the Sheriff’s Department, in violation of their constitutional rights, for periods of time ranging from 26 to 29 hours after a court had ...
