For decades Texas jails have been cesspool's of misery, medical neglect, brutality and over crowding. Class action litigation in the 1970's alleviated some of the worst aspects of the Texas jail system and led to modest improvements. By the late 1990's the jail consent decrees and injunctions had been removed ...
By now all subscribers should have received PLN's bi annual reader survey and fundraiser letter. We have not received that many responses back to the survey which may mean everyone is happy with PLN's content the way it is. If you have not yet returned it please do so. Among ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 9
Federal Judge Enforces "Valdivia Remedial Plan"
for California Parole Violators
On June 8, 2005, the United States District Court enforced its order in Valdivia v. Davis, 206 F.Supp.2d 1068 (E.D. Cal. 2002) [PLN, Jan.2003, p.16] and its March 9, 2004 Stipulated Permanent Injunction implementing the ensuing Valdivia Remedial Plan" (VRP) ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 10
The watchdog California Office of Inspector General (OIG), when investigating the case of a foreign language interpreter who bilked the Board of Prison Terms (BPT) out of $11,862 in false claims, found the BPT's contracting and accountability procedures for such services woefully inadequate.
Between August, 2000 and June, 2003, Estella ...
In a suit challenging excessive collect call rates charged to prisoners' families, friends and attorneys, the Indiana Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court's dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Chanelle Alexander and others (the Class) pay for collect calls from prisoners in Indiana's state prisons and county ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 12
by Michael Rigby
Despite reports of sexual abuse dating back 20 years ... despite a tumultuous decade of lawsuits that cost millions of taxpayer dollars ... and despite a promise by state officials to implement sweeping reforms, the sexual victimization of women continues unabated in Michigan prisons, according to a ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 16
by Matthew T. Clarke
President Bush has ordered the states to comply with a March 2004 decision of the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court. In that decision the World Court ruled that fifty-one Mexican national prisoners that are incarcerated on various death rows in the ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 17
by Michael Rigby
The North Carolina Department of Corrections (DOC) has paid $43,500 to four women who were subjected to strip and body-cavity searches performed by other prisoners and to a fifth who was beaten when she refused to undress.
The assaults occurred in a disciplinary housing wing at the ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 18
The good news is that as of September 30, 2005, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has approved 102 lifers for parole since taking office two years ago, a vast improvement over former Governor Gray Davis' record of paroling just eight lifers during his five years in office. The bad news is ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 20
Private prison companies, which presently house only 2,550 of California's 165,000 prisoners, have hired a former county lawmaker, former CDC employees and the former state Finance Director in an attempt to expand into the $7 billion California corrections market. However, the powerful prison guards union (CCPOA), which represents state-employed (but ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 22
by Matthew T. Clarke
The Texas State Auditor's Office has released a report which scathingly criticized the Correctional Managed Health Care Committee (Committee) for failing to perform its contractual duties and having several conflicts of interest with the health care providers, concluding that the committee may no longer be necessary. ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 23
Between February 2003 and November 2004, the Texas prison system sold 53 horses to the Dallas Crown slaughterhouse in Kaufmann, Texas, for processing into meat for human consumption. This violates § 149.003 of the Texas Agriculture Code. The first offense is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 24
by Bob Williams
The United States District Court for the Northern District of New York ruled that New York's program for treating convicted state sex offenders violates the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against compulsory self-incrimination and issued a preliminary injunction. The Second Circuit has issued a stay pending appeal.
In 2002, ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 26
by Matthew T. Clarke
Recently, the Dallas Morning News (DMN) generated articles decrying the presence of convicted drug and sex offenders in the nursing profession.
Texas, like many states, has statutes denying ex-prisoners licensing in many state-licensed professions. In some professions, being convicted of a misdemeanor is sufficient cause for ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 27
by John E. Dannenberg
The Los Angeles (L.A.) County Sheriff's Department will spend $1.5 million to install a computerized radio ID tag system in 2006 to monitor the location of 1,900 prisoners at the Pitchess Detention Center (county jail) in Castaic.
The radio-linked wristbands work inside the jail structure, pinpointing ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 27
On June 17, 2005, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed into law legislation that allows Texas juries to sentence defendants to life without the possibility of parole in capital cases. Senate Bill 60 replaces the previous non-death-penalty option of 40 years without the possibility of parole with life without the possibility ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 28
by Michael Rigby
Hundreds of prisoners killed by lethal injectionthe preferred method of execution in 37 states and the federal Bureau of Prisonsmay have suffered agonizing deaths due to a routine failure to administer enough anesthesia, according to a recent study. Reviewing toxicology data from 49 executions, researchers in Virginia ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 29
by John E. Dannenberg
The former medical director for Rensselear (New York) County Jail was put on probation for three years by state health authorities for improper treatment of alcohol withdrawal syndrome that caused the death of a pre-trial detainee. Additionally, the director was permanently banned from practicing medicine at ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 30
by Marvin Mentor
Seven prisoner deaths and numerous reported police beatings between October 2004 and April 2005 at the Santa Clara County (SCC), California jail have local civil rights watchers calling for a grand jury investigation. Similar problems occurred at SCC in 1995 when they were studied by the County ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 31
In November 2005, GEO Group, the second-largest private prison company in the U.S., finalized its purchase of the Sarasota, Florida-based Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) for $6 a share -- a total of $62 million in cash -- and the assumption of $124 million of CSC's debt. GEO had previously announced ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 31
The New Jersey prison system is infested with parasitic employees--thrust upon the department by legislators and the governor's office--who bleed state taxpayers for more than $850,000 a year, Department of Corrections (DOC) commissioner Devon Brown has admitted.
The revelation came during a May 3, 2005, meeting of the Assembly Budget ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 32
An audit of the Chester County, Pennsylvania, Prison's finances uncovered hidden cash accounts used to collect $18,000 from prisoners between 1984 and 2003. All but $4,000 of the money had already been spent at management's discretion over the years," according to Ray E. White, Jr., acting Chester County Controller. The ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 32
by John E. Dannenberg
In July 2005, a New York federal jury awarded $150,000 in compensatory damages and $632,988 in punitive damages to a jail prisoner who suffered permanent disabilities when treatment for his heart attack was delayed for three critical days by indifferent guards and medical staff.
Byron Lake, ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 33
Federal Court Finds California Murder Paroles Blocked by Illegal No-Parole" Policy
by Marvin Mentor
On May 19, 2005, the United States District Court (E.D. Cal.) ruled that the California Board of Prison Terms (BPT), between 1992 and 1998, disregarded regulations ensuring fair hearings and instead operated under a sub rosa ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 34
by John E. Dannenberg
A class action lawsuit against Los Angeles (L.A.) County and its Sheriff Leroy Baca was filed in 2004 in the United States District Court (C.D. Cal.) on behalf of an estimated 4,000 present and former L.A. County Jail prisoners who were infected there with MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 34
by Military Prisoners
The Unites States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that the Feres doctrine, adopted by the United States Supreme Court in Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135 (1950), bars suits brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) by military prisoners.
Jeffrey Schnitzer was ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 35
The good news is that California's Department of General Services (DGS) negotiated a bulk discount price for the large quantities of pegylated interferon it buys for the treatment of Hepatitis-C infected prisoners, and will save the state $1 million on the $5.6 million expended last year. The bad news is ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 35
On February 3, 2005, a New Jersey man settled his federal lawsuit against state parole officialswhom he claimed were responsible for his remaining in prison 11 months beyond his approved parole datefor $50,000.
Vincent Pannone was imprisoned on May 7, 1999, for theft by deception and credit card fraud. He ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 36
by Michael Rigby
A man who was wrongfully convicted of raping a 5-year-old girl has settled with the state of New York for $5 million, the largest such settlement in state history.
But no amount of money can atone for the seven years Alberto Ramos spent in prison with the ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 37
Los Angeles County Pays $60,900 To Settle
Jail Detainee Rape Claim
Los Angeles (L.A.) County, California, paid $60,900 to a female detainee who was raped in her Century Regional Detention Facility (CRDF) cell by a male prisoner who was inadvertently admitted by a County Sheriff's deputy.
On July 16, 2004, ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 38
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court order requiring prison officials to take immediate steps to air condition the cells of Wisconsin's supermax prison.
In 2000, two prisoners confined in the Supermax prison in Boschobel, Wisconsin brought suit alleging that they were subjected to extreme temperatures in ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 38
When administratively segregated mentally ill prisoners were placed in the same cell at California State Prison, Los Angeles (LAC) in September, 2004, one strangled the other with a bed sheet. Upon investigating the death, the watchdog Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that there was no policy against such ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 39
On February 1, 2005, a Hawaii court awarded $25,427.00 to a prisoner who claimed he was assaulted by another prisoner.
Plaintiff Lael Samonte, 47, contended that while imprisoned at the Halawa Correctional Facility on May 22, 2002, he was attacked and knocked unconscious by fellow prisoner Jonathan Tagatac. Samonte was ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 40
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that the heightened pleading standard is not applicable in a § 1983 action against a non-governmental entity that cannot raise qualified immunity as a defense" pursuant to Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence & Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163, 113 S.Ct. 1160 (1993), ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 40
by Bob Williams
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has reversed a Wisconsin Federal District Court's dismissal of a prisoner complaint the district court found to have probable merit but dismissed under 28 U.S.C. § 191S(e)(2) screening because the judge felt the prisoner could not afford the litigation. ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 41
News in Brief:
Alabama: On January 10, 2006, Ronald Hammonds, 35, a guard at the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega was arrested in a Taco Bell parking lot by FBI agents on charges of supplying prisoners with marijuana.
Arizona: On December 31, 2005, Vincent Cannon, 23, a guard at the ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2006, page 44
Court Invalidates Mental Health Supervised Release Condition;
Condition Impermissibly Delegates Judicial Authority to PO
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that a Delaware district court improperly imposed a supervised release condition requiring mental health counseling. The court also held that the condition was invalid because it impermissibly delegated judicial ...
