In the past couple of years, there have been a number of changes to federal statutes that provide protections to those confined with disabilities. This article discusses those changes. Additional rights that the disabled may have under federal and state constitutional provisions, such as the Eighth Amendment right to be ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 4
A Pinellas County (Florida) jury
found that an office chair assembled by the Florida DOC's prison industries was defective, and the proximate cause of a state office worker's injuries. The jury awarded the woman $390,000 in damages; however, the recovery was capped at $100,000 by Florida's Tort Claims Act.
This ...
by David M. Reutter
A 42 U. S. C. § 1983 action filed in a Florida State Court alleging retaliatory job changes for the filing of grievances and lawsuits that challenged the general living conditions at Glades Correctional Institution (GCI) has been settled for $3,000. In June 1993, David Reutter, ...
Since the 19th century prisoners
in Oregon have literally labored under a policy that insisted prisoners should work as hard as taxpayers. But the prevailing philosophy is falling prey to fiscal realities. Oregon's evaporating economy has enhanced employment concerns among its citizens, even as prison employment prospers. Oregon's jobless rate, ...
From The Editor
by Paul Wright
Beginning with this issue of PLN there will be some changes in the law articles. Due to the limited space we have for news and law articles and the ongoing growth in prison and jail related cases being decided by the courts, we are ...
If you are litigating or planning a case in federal court against state prison officials, it is very important to be clear about what rights you are asserting and what relief you are requesting. Federal courts are not allowed to simply order states to comply with all federal laws that ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 10
On January 29, 2003, the Oregon
Department of Corrections (DOC) agreed to settle a censorship lawsuit filed by Prison Legal News by paying $39,914.31 in fees and costs and $15,500 in damages and changing its policies concerning the processing and censorship of prisoner mail. On April 2, 2002, PLN sued ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 10
In a brief ruling, a Washington state appeals court held that trial courts lack the statutory authority to suspend the accrual of interest on court ordered restitution. Dean Claypool pled guilty to second degree assault charges and, in addition to a prison sentence, was ordered to pay unspecified legal financial ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 11
by Matthew T. Clarke
The Texas state legislature has enacted what may be the most pro-prisoner post-conviction DNA testing entitlement law in the country. Codified at Chapter 64 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, the law gives any convicted person the right to submit a motion for DNA testing ...
Since 1997, when a court deemed her too dangerous to live in society, Laura McCollum has remained the lone female prisoner at Washington's civil commitment center for sexually-violent predators on the grounds of the state's women's' prison near Purdy. McCollum, 43, who has been confined in an, 1,100-square-foot manufactured home, ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 12
The Wyoming Supreme Court has held that the Wyoming Public Records Act (WPRA) requires that state's jails to disclose to the press reports evaluating jail suicide prevention procedures.
In 1998, prisoner suicide attempts increased in the county jail in Laramie, Wyoming. Laramie County Sheriff, Roger Allsop, requested an evaluation of ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 13
In two separate rulings the courts of appeal for the Fourth and Fifth Circuits have held that section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (RA), 29 U.S.C. §794(a), and, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §12312, do not validly abrogate states' Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 14
The Washington State Court of Appeals held that the Washington parole board (Board) violated statutes and its own procedures by imposing a Mutual Agreement Program (MAP) with no time frame. The court also held that the Board must clarify a prisoner's right to accrual of good time before and during ...
by John E. Dannenberg
On December 16, 2002, the U.S. District Court (D. Ariz.) granted plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction (PI) enjoining the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADOC) from enforcing laws arising from Arizona House Bill 2376 (HB 2376) - an enactment banning Internet-generated communications with prisoners - pending ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 15
California's Governor Gray Davis authorized the use of force to take DNA samples from state prisoners, when he signed Senate Bill 1242 into law on Sept. 17, 2002.
Existing California Penal Code §§ 296, 296.1 and 296.2 codify the requirement and procedure for taking DNA samples from specified incarcerated violent ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 15
The California Court of Appeals upheld the California Department of Corrections (CDC) procedure of forcibly collecting blood and saliva DNA samples from prisoners convicted of specified violent crimes, including capital murder. Rejecting the privacy claims of eight women on Death Row, the court ruled that CA Penal Code (PC) §295 ...
Located in the gently rolling hills of Southern Colorado, dotted with juniper, poplar and cedar trees, Florence is a quiet, small town that was once a prison town without a prison. At just over 5,000 town residents, Florence shares its view of the Sangre de Christo mountain range with its ...
Two guards at Arizona's Perryville prison are facing numerous charges, substantiated by internal investigations, of sexual misconduct with prisoners.
Derrick Renard Allen was indicted in late April 2002 by a state grand jury on 8 counts of sexual assault and 2 counts of smuggling contraband into the prison; he was ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 20
On April 10, 2002, a federal jury in New Jersey awarded four Atlantic County Jail guards $300,000 each for retaliation taken against them after they publicly protested unsafe jail conditions.
In May, 1997, Edward Clopp, Noriss Justis, Robert Reid Murie, and Iris Quezergue, guards at the Gerard L. Gormeley Justice ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 21
by Marvin Mentor
On May 15, 2002, a federal criminal jury convicted two Pelican Bay State Prison (CA) guards of violating the civil rights of eight prisoners whom they conspired to have beaten and stabbed - two fatally; And in a civil trial ensuing from one prisoner's death, new accusations ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 22
Georgia Parole Board's "90% Policy" Ruled Ex Post Facto
by John E. Dannenberg
The United States District Court (N.D. Ga.) held that the retroactive application by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles ("Board") of its 1998 policy revision requiring specified violent felons to now do 90% (rather than 1/3) ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 23
In April, 2002, a federal jury in East St. Louis, Illinois, awarded $400,000 in damages to former prisoner David Sherrod, finding that Illinois Department of Corrections medical staff had shown deliberate indifference to his medical needs by failing to treat a ruptured appendix. In March, 1995, Sherrod was at the ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 24
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that 42 U.S.C. §1997e(e) requires a prisoner demonstrate more than de minimus physical injury to receive compensatory damages for mental and emotional claims. Pre-trial detainee Eric Oliver filed a civil rights action alleging he endured overcrowded and "dehumanizing" conditions during three separate ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 24
by Matthew T. Clarke
The Texas Supreme Court (TSC) has held that using pain medication to fatally mask meningitis symptoms was not a "use" of tangible state property within the meaning of the Texas Tort Claims Act, § 101.021(2) (TTCA).
The surviving spouse and children of a Texas prisoner sued ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 25
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that factual issues precluded summary judgment on a prisoner's free speech claim and that dismissal with prejudice of his remaining claims was an abuse of discretion.
Idaho prison regulations require prisoners to shave daily. A guard ordered prisoner Christopher Hargis to shave. But ...
by John E. Dannenberg
The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that an underlying state tolling statute applied to a state prisoner's 42 USC § 1983 civil rights complaint, thus giving him time to complete his administrative grievance process as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA).
Shaun ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 26
Affirming the judgments of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the jury verdict and the denial of post-trial motions in a case awarding compensatory and punitive damages to a female prisoner sexually assaulted by a guard.
Pamela Riley ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 27
The Vermont Supreme Court has held that the state's Department of Corrections (DOC) must comply with the Vermont Administrative Procedure Act (APA) before it implements and enforces any rule changes. This was a class-action suit represented by Jeff Sworkin of the Prisoner Rights unit in the Defender Generals Office; it ...
by Michael E. Tigar & Madeleine R. Levy, New (2000) Edition by Michael E. Tigar, Monthly Review Press, 348 pages, $18.00
Review by Peter Wagner
Famed litigator and scholar Michael Tigar has reissued his 1977 classic Law and the Rise of Capitalism with a new introduction and afterword that contains ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 28
Washington State recently settled or was found liable in three separate law suits alleging that it negligently supervised probationers or parolees. Negligent supervision cases are not new in Washington. Since 2000, the State either settled or was ordered to pay more than $100 million in similar suits.
The family of ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 29
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that the district court did not error in excluding evidence or argument regarding affirmative defenses of necessity and duress in trials for prisoners' weapon possession.
On May 18, 1999, Terry Walker, a black prisoner at the United States Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, (Marion) ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2003, page 30
Arkansas: On May 16, 2002, Barry Parrish, 38, pleaded guilty to walking out of the Lewisville county jail where he was imprisoned and working as a trusty, going to the home of jail guard George Turner on August 23, 2001, killing him with a pair of scissors and then stealing ...
