Trumpeted as the pinnacle of high-tech prison architecture when it opened in 1993, the Federal Correctional Complex in Florence, Colorado, contains two lower security facilities, one maximum security prison, and, since 1994, the Clockwork Orange inspired U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum. The steel and concrete citadels are rimmed by verdant hills ...
It's spreading like wildfire, from New York to Seattle, Chicago to Dallas, and coming soon to an urban setting near you. It's the "NO MORE PRISONS" graffiti movement, a simple form of civil disobedience which requires only a can of spray paint and an unspoiled public canvas (such as the ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 4
A federal district court in Alabama has approved a settlement between Alabama state prisoners and the prison system, effectively ending Alabama's flirtation with chain gangs. The court also held that the practice of chaining prisoners to a "hitching post" is unconstitutional, cruel and unusual punishment.
Alabama state prisoners Michael A. ...
September, 2001, marks the 30th anniversary of the modern prisoner rights movement in the United States. In September, 1971, prisoners in Attica, New York, rose up to protest horrendous conditions. The uprising occurred after peaceful means of protest had failed and prisoners refused to be "driven like beasts" any longer. ...
The fake hunting regulations prominently posted in a Calhoun Correctional Institution colonel's office read, "OPEN SEASON ON PORCH MONKEYS." The daily kill limit was ten according to the sign, Roy Hughes, a black guard, told the St. Petersburg Times December 19, 1999. Fifty-five percent of prisoners in Florida are black, ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 7
Virginia Rent-A-Cell Program Expected to Net $100 Million
The state of Virginia will pocket an estimated $100 million in 2001 by warehousing out-of-state and federal prisoners for a fee.
About 10% of the Virginia jail and prison population is out-of-state or federal prisoners. During the year 2000, Virginia charged between ...
Citing incidents dating back to 1993, over 100 current and past employees are suing the Florida DOC for perpetuating a "long standing custom or policy of racial discrimination." What began as two law suits in December 1999 increased to four suits by March 2000, and now involves the Florida NAACP. ...
Less than two years after it opened, the second privately operated prison in the state of Ohio is already in trouble. CiviGenics, a private prison company out of Massachusetts, has succumbed to pressure applied by the state employees union. On January 10, the director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 10
A Mississippi man who was improperly jailed for nearly 10 months because of a "bureaucratic snafu" was awarded just $36,200 by a federal jury in Jackson, Mississippi in October 2000.
Joseph Jones, a Jackson mechanic, was stopped by a state patrol officer in June 1994, at which time the officer ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 10
Oklahoma officials are investigating the propriety of $240,000 in cash gifts given to that State's governor, Frank Keating. Jack Dreyfus, an entrepreneur who hopes to convince Oklahoma prison officials to use Dilantin (a seizure medication) to control violent prisoners, made the gifts.
After receiving the cash from Dreyfus, Keating arranged ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 10
In October, 2000, federal prison guards Troy Kemmerer and Todd Swineford were arrested and indicted for accepting money to help smuggle cryogenic sperm kits to a New York City fertility clinic.
The investigation began over two years ago when convicted hit man Kevin Granato sat in visitation at LSCI_Allenwood bragging ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 11
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that Federal Prison Industries, Inc. (FPI) is entitled to sovereign immunity in a qui tam suit brought under the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729 et seq.
Gilbert W. Galvan, a federal prisoner, sued FPI, under the FCA, for falsely ...
Washington Supreme Court Upholds 35% Seizure Law; But Prisoners Entitled To Interest From Mandatory Savings Accounts
The Washington Supreme Court has declared RCW § 72.09.480 to be constitutional. The statute directs the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) to seize 35% of most funds received by its prisoners, including money sent ...
The prosecution of prisoners in Greene County New York is a high priority for District Attorney Terry Wilhelm. In the first nine months of his tenure, Wilhelm secured 23 indictments from the Greene and Coxsackie Correctional Facilities. His predecessor, Ed Cloke, prosecuted only 13 cases in the two previous years. ...
An attempt by Ohio prisons to manufacture items for retail business had to be cancelled because it could not provide Workers' Compensation insurance for prisoners. State Inspector General Thomas P. Charles says the state is not at fault. Rather, the intervention of the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance has made ...
The federal government wrote Terry Dean Scearce a check for $355,000 in November, 2000, to settle his claim that he suffered a stroke in 1998 because prison officials did not give him the medicine prescribed to treat his high blood pressure.
Scearce, in his late 50's, was being held at ...
CCA Gets Tangled In Financial Quagmire
Corrections Corporation of America said it is contesting an $8.1 million request for payment from Merrill Lynch & Company related to its hiring of the investment firm in late 1999 for advice on a company restructuring.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 14
In December, 2000, the Bureau of Justice Statistics analyzed the United States' death penalty in a report titled "Capital Punishment 1999." It is an in-depth analysis of how the death penalty was applied in the United States in 1999, plus a preliminary execution report for 2000.
From 1998 to 1999, ...
Environmental Concerns Halt Construction Of Pennsylvania Prison
The wretched and overcrowded conditions at Washington, D.C.'s Lorton Correctional Complex have resulted in Congress giving the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) responsibility for housing all D.C. prisoners. Lorton, located in Fairfax, VA, must close by the end of 2001, and all prisoners ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 18
The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that prison officials' denial of a religious diet violated the First Amendment by substantially burdening a state prisoner's religious beliefs.
Arkansas state prisoner Kelvin Love is a self-proclaimed adherent of the "Hebrew religion." His study of the Old Testament has led ...
by Stephen Elias and Susan Levinkind
Legal Research does exactly what its title indicates; it explains how to find and understand the law. The book is written in easy to understand language, while imparting a vast amount of information in a comprehensive manner.
The book is broken down into sections ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 19
The Federal District Court in Kansas has denied summary judgment on a prisoner's claims of excessive force. The Court also held guards were not entitled to qualified immunity on these claims.
In 1997, Felmon Laury was placed in the Special Housing Unit (SHU) in the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth. Three ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 19
A federal district court in Virginia denied Deputy Sheriff F.C. Bruce's motion to dismiss a claim brought by Kelvin Watford in which Watford complained that Bruce assaulted him, resulting in "bruising, scarring, and swelling." The Court discussed " de minimis injury" and found that Fourth Circuit caselaw appeared to conflict ...
by Jim Redden, Feral House, 2001, 235 pages
Snitch Culture is a timely examination of how personal and technological snitching is used by the state and by private organizations, in conjunction with informational databases, to obliterate the privacy of Americans. The author, Jim Redden, formerly published PDXS , a quasi-counterculture ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 21
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the conduct of a county, when housing a prisoner with another prisoner against whom he had acted as a confidential informant, did not rise to the level of an Eighth Amendment violation.
Neville Rangolan and his wife Shirley brought suit ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 21
The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has held that two Rhode Island Department of Corrections (RIDOC) policies routinely subjecting all males committed to the state prison to strip searches and visual body cavity searches are not reasonable under Bell v Wolfish , 441 U.S. 520, 559 (1979). This ...
AU.S. district court jury in Washington, D.C., awarded female D.C. Jail prisoner Sunday Daskalea $350,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages against the District and the Department of Corrections Director, Margaret Moore, for Daskalea's having been sexually assaulted and forced by guards to perform a striptease in ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 23
An Illinois federal district court ruled that a prisoner's claim that he was denied out-of-cell exercise during a six month prison lockdown "present[ed] a cognizable claim despite the penological justification proffered by the defendants." The Court also ruled that Defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity nor shielded from liability ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 24
The Court of Appeals for the Sev-enth Circuit held that the requirements of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) do not apply to properly characterized habeas corpus petitions under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2241, 2254, or 2255, finding that those actions are not "civil actions" within the meaning of the PLRA. ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 24
The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the requirements of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) do not apply to properly characterized habeas corpus petitions under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2241, 2254, or 2255, finding that those actions are not "civil actions" within the meaning of the PLRA. ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 25
Possibility of Life In Control Unit Doesn't Mitigate Death
The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has held that the possibility of life imprisonment in a control unit is not a mitigating factor in a federal death penalty case.
Darryl Lamont Johnson, a federal prisoner, is allegedly a high-ranking ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 26
A federal district court in Louisiana has held that federal law requires prison officials to release a prisoner's mental health records for investigation of claims of mistreatment.
Prisoner William Ford sent a letter to the Advocacy Center complaining that he has a history of mental illness for which he was ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 27
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc , reversed a district court's dismissal of a federal habeas petition as time barred, and remanded the case to the district court to develop the record regarding whether the prisoner was entitled to a finding of an "impediment" under 28 U.S.C. ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 27
A Maryland federal district court's ruling denying summary judgment in an "environmental tobacco smoke" (ETS) case has prompted the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DOPSACS) to ban tobacco, matches, and lighters at all Maryland state prisons, effective June, 2001, according to published reports. As quoted in news ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 28
An Ohio federal district court refused to dismiss a challenge to an Ohio policy prohibiting condemned prisoners from giving last statements. The Court also discussed the PLRA's administrative exhaustion requirements and mootness concerns.
Ohio Death Row prisoner Fred Treesh and another (unnamed) prisoner have challenged the State of Ohio's policy, ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 29
The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has reversed the dismissal of a prisoner's pro se civil rights suit for missing a single pre-trial deadline. Bobby Ray Long, an Indiana state prisoner, filed a civil rights suit in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that prison officials ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2001
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2001, page 30
Brazil: On June 29, 2001, former police colonel Ubiratan Guimaraes, 58, was convicted of killing 102 prisoners in 1992 when he commanded the police takeover of Carandiru Prison after an uprising by prisoners. Officially 111 prisoners were killed in the uprising, including 9 stabbed to death by other prisoners, but ...
