Recent years have seen a plethora of so called anti-crime initiatives placed on various state ballots, the most famous being the "Three Strikes You're Out" type laws. These initiatives purport to be efforts by state citizens who are fed up with crime and who are doing something about it. While ...
This issue marks PLN's sixth year of publishing and 72 consecutive issues. For anyone familiar with alternative publications in general and prison publications in particular this is a significant milestone. Ed Mead and I started PLN on a trial basis in 1990, we decided to print six issues and see ...
In my October editorial I asked readers what they would like to see more of in PLN as well as any suggestions on how we could improve our content. One of the respondents, Richard Barker, said he would like to see more case law. As far as case law goes, ...
In the April, 1994, issue of PLN we reported the filing of Scott v. Peterson which challenged numerous aspects of court access for Washington state prisoners. On October 31, 1995, most of the suit was settled and the settlement terms were effective November 30, 1995. The settlement is between five ...
Welcome to another issue of PLN . Readers who have been with us for awhile may recall that Ed Mead and I have a suit pending against the Washington State Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (ISRB), AKA the parole board. Ed was the co-editor of PLN from 1990, when we started, ...
On January 23, 1995, Judge William Dwyer, US District Court in Seattle, accepted a stipulated motion in Lopez v. Riveland, Case No. C93-1030WD, a wide ranging lawsuit which challenged the almost complete lack of translation facilities for non- English speaking prisoners in the Washington DOC. This is one of the ...
In the August, 1995, issue of PLN we discussed the myriad anti-prisoner and -defendant legislation passed by the Washington State legislature in its 1995 session. The 1995 session was the longest in state history, running several months past its scheduled closing. Because the legislature squandered its time and resources on ...
Welcome to another issue of PLN. Some of you may have noticed some changes in last month's issue of PLN. We have recently undergone some of the biggest transitions in PLN's history. First, if the format looked a little different that is because we have begun the transition to using ...
Review by Paul Wright
The Citebook is a 275 page book written by Tony Darwin designed to help laypersons help themselves in researching their litigation. Now in its eleventh printing the book is organized by subject and gives a brief description of relevant cases. This book is in a category ...
Reviewed by Paul Wright
The Prisoners' Self Help Litigation Manual (PSHLM) by Dan Manville first appeared in 1983. It was designed to give prisoners an overview of the legal system, a basic overview of what their rights are and guidance on how to actually litigate a suit in federal court. ...
