by W. Wisely
Gary Hahn walks his dog, tugging at the leash, back and forth on the hardpan track at Lancaster prison's maximum security D Facility in California. Right arm folded, fist crammed into the small of his back, Gary walks bent over, his curved spine and emaciated frame belying ...
By Paul Wright
As the article in this issue mentions, PLN contributing writer Mark Cook was recently released from prison after 24 years. We wish Mark the best.
Former contributing writer O'Neil Stough was recently released from prison and, unfortunately, did not do very well as he committed suicide earlier ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 4
On November 14, 1999, hundreds of prisoners housed at a privately operated prison in Taft, California, rioted in protest over conditions, according to The Bakersfield Californian. Prisoners at the Wackenhut Corrections run facility broke windows, televisions, and furniture causing some $60,000 in damage at the two year old prison in ...
Supreme Court Decides Georgia Parole Case
by John Midgley
In many states, there are parole boards that decide when prisoners will be released. In these states, the timing of when the parole board will consider parole the timing of "initial" parole consideration and the timing of later "reconsideration" of parole ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 7
On November 30, 1999, Wisconsin state prison officials were touring the Whiteville Correctional Facility (WCF) in Tennessee. The prison is operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and houses 1,500 Wisconsin prisoners.
Just minutes after WCF warden Percy Pitzer led an entourage headed by Wisconsin corrections chief Jon Litscher through ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 8
by Kamau "Ponchai" Wilkerson
[The following is an excerpt from "My Statement in Response to the Setting of an Execution Date and the State of Texas' Plan to Murder Me," by Ponchai Kamau Wilkerson]
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery "...except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have. been ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 8
On March 15, 2000, the state of Texas killed Kamau (Ponchai) Wilkerson. He proved to be a fighter to the end.
Kamau was among seven Texas death row prisoners who stunned the world with a bold escape attempt on Thanksgiving Day 1998 [See: Daring Death Row Escape Shakes Up Texas, ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 9
by Matthew T. Clarke
A federal district court in New York has held that officials of the New York Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) subjected a prisoner to cruel and unusual punishment through their deficient treatment of his mental illness and by the brutal conditions under which he was incarcerated. ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 9
On April 15, 1999, a federal district court in Georgia issued a directed verdict awarding a blind Georgia state prisoner $2,000 in damages. Eddy Stephens, a blind prisoner, was denied access to braile books and writing instruments. He was also not allowed to take prison vocational courses due to his ...
By Ronald Young
The U.S. district court for the East- ern District of California held that a prisoner was not precluded from introducing evidence contradicting factual findings of disciplinary proceeding instituted against prisoner as a result of incident.
Vincent Marquez, a California state prisoner, brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 11
The court of appeals for the Eighth circuit held that a trial was required to determine if a prisoner was retaliated against for exercising his right to religious freedom. The court also held that prisoners have no right to encourage other prisoners to file grievances or lawsuits and that an ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 11
On July 2, 1999, a federal jury in Columbus, Ohio, awarded Ohio prisoner James Morrison 115,000 in damages. Morrison filed suit claiming he was taken to a secluded area of a prison (unnamed in reports), where he was beaten and kicked by guards Karl Davis, Jeffrey Felts and Charles Adams. ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 12
On February 15, 2000, a federal judge approved a settlement in which New York State is to pay $8 million to the prisoners who were beaten and tortured after the 1971 Attica riot, closing one of the longest, ugliest chapters in criminal justice history. The settlement provides an additional $4 ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 12
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals added insult to brutal injury when it overturned two jury awards - totaling $4 million and $75,000 - stemming from the murder of 39 people and the torture of hundreds of prisoners immediately following the 1971 Attica riot. Holding that bifurcation of the liability ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 13
Illinois Jail Guards Charged With Smuggling Gun
Two former Kankakee (Illinois) County Jail guards and a civilian face multiple felony counts in connection with a dramatic December 22, 1999 jailbreak.
Newly-hired guards Melody Burdunice and Michael Cutler allegedly smuggled cellular telephone batteries to accused killer and jail detainee John "Buck ...
Reviewed by Julia Lutsky
During the calendar years 1995 to 1998, approximately 31,400 women prisoners in the three largest U.S. jurisdictions made a total of 506 allegations of staff sexual misconduct; of these only 92, or 18 percent, were sustained. "Because many female [prisoners] may be reluctant or unwilling to ...
By Richard Glen Boire, Ronin, 271 pages
Review by Allan Parmelee
This book is must reading for anyone interested in knowing what their rights are when dealing with police in general as well as every aspect of the law as it concerns the use, possession, growing and sale of marijuana. ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 15
Federal Judge Hits BOP Mule With Two-by-Four
A ticked-off federal judge in Miami interrupted the fraud and money-laundering trial of jewel dealer Jack Hasson February 2, 2000, for an "extraordinary display of judicial pique and power," the Palm Beach Post reported.
U.S. District Court Judge James Lawrence King ordered arrest ...
by David Fanning, Irish Northern Aid
On May 22, 1998, voters in Ireland, north and south, voted overwhelmingly in favor of adopting what has become known as the Good Friday Agreement (GFA). This agreement was meant to bring to an end over thirty years of bitter conflict in the six ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 17
A federal district court in New York held that fact issues existed as to whether a prison official was deliberately indifferent to a prisoner's health, and whether she was aware of unsafe working conditions. Since both situations fall within the purview of the Eighth Amendment, a trial was necessary to ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 17
On April 3, 2000, PLN contributing writer Mark Cook was released from the Monroe Correctional Complex in Washington. Mark was imprisoned for more than 24 years in Washington and federal prisons after being captured and charged in 1976 with carrying out action on behalf of the George Jackson Brigade (GJB). ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 18
On March 20, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Certiorari to the State of Washington appealing a ninth. Circuit order for the district court to hold an evidentiary hearing to determine if the state's civil commitment statute "as applied" to petitioner renders the statute "punitive" in nature and thus violates ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 19
In the August, 1999, issue of PLN we reported that a class action suit had been filed in federal court in Illinois challenging the extortionate phone rates charged to those who accept collect calls from prisoners.
On March 23, 2000, federal district court judge William Hibbler ordered the suit dismissed ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 19
Prisoners at the Mount Olive Correctional Center in West Virginia staged a walkout on Monday morning August 30, 1999 to protest a new visitation policy and problems with the phone system.
More than 200 prisoners gathered in the prison's recreation yard and sat down. Most of them had walked away ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 20
In 1992 Bureau of Prisons (BOP) em- ployee Steven McPeek quietly settled a sexual harassment complaint he leveled against then-BOP director J. Michael Quinlan, according to recently filed court papers. McPeek alleged in his 1992 complaint that Quinlan made sexual advances beginning in August 1990 while they traveled together on ...
Last summer the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, John Suthers, announced to the Colorado Legislature that Colorado's male prison population is growing at its fastest rate ever. In fact, at an average of 1.3% per month in the second quarter of 1999, the prison population grew at ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 21
Four Texas state prison guards face felony bribery charges after agreeing to launder supposed drug money for prisoners, authorities told The Associated Press.
The four were arrested January 24, 2000 after walking into an undercover sting orchestrated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) Internal Affairs office and the ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 22
On June 22, 1999, a Macomb county jury in Michigan awarded $200,000 in damages to David Dempsey after he was wrongly medicated in the Macomb county jail. Dempsey suffers from bipolar disorder. While imprisoned on the psychiatric floor of the Macomb county jail, Suzanne Pease, a nurse with St. Joseph ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 22
New York Jail Guards Charged With Raping Prisoners
On January 26, 2000, Westchester county, New York, jail guards Carlos Aldarondo, 33, Javier Corona, 31, Michael Downey, 39 and Robert Escalera, 39, were charged in Westchester county court with assorted felony charges stemming from their rape and sexual abuse of women ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 23
The Washington state Supreme Court, sitting En Banc, held that the 10 year life of restitution orders begins to run upon release from confinement and is not tolled by any subsequent imprisonment on unrelated charges.
In 1986, Brandt Sappenfield was convicted of crimes in Benton and King counties. He was ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 24
The Oregon Supreme Court invalidated several administrative rules of the Oregon Department of Corrections, (ODOC), regarding the witnessing of executions. The Court held that the challenged rules exceeded the ODOC's rulemaking authority.
The Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association and several other members of the media challenged a series of rules promulgated ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 24
A federal district court held that the Prison Litigation Reform Act's (PLRA) exhaustion requirement does not apply to assault claims. It also held that a cause of action under the Violence Against Women Act, (VAWA), is analogous to a cause of action under Section 1983, and that supervisors are liable ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 25
Elizabeth Feil, 43, a former psychologist at the Patuxent Institution in Baltimore, MD has pled guilty to accessory to escape for her role in helping her lover, Byron Smoot, 29, escape from a medium security prison in Jessup, Maryland.
Smoot had been under the care of Feil when he was ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 26
Brazil: On March 11, 2000, 17 prisoners armed with knives overpowered four guards at the Mata Grande Penitentiary in Rondonopolis and forced them to open the cellblock of a rival gang. The armed prisoners then proceeded to kill 13 and wound 3 of their rivals. Three hours later police stormed ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2000
published in Prison Legal News
June, 2000, page 28
The court of appeals for the Third circuit held that the U.S. Parole Commission (USPC) was bound by its own rules and erred in calculating a prisoner's parole eligibility date. Former CIA agent Edwin Wilson was convicted in 1982 of transporting firearms in interstate commerce for the purpose of committing ...
