Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 1
by Michael Rigby
Tennessee isn't known for its huge prison system, like Texas or California. Nor is the state's capital city, Nashville, recognized for massively overcrowded jails such as the ones in Los Angeles or New York City. But one thing is clear: Tennessee lockups are just as dangerous, the ...
by David M. Reutter
Florida's Correctional Privatization Commission (CPC) consistently failed to safeguard the State's interests in its role as steward of privately operated correctional facilities," causing Florida's taxpayers to pay $12.7 million in questionable and excessive of cost. That conclusion was arrived at in a scathing report of the ...
In addition to PLN's own censorship litigation for prisoners we also undertake advocacy and support for prisoner rights on behalf of prisoners in other court cases. In the current supreme court term, PLN submitted an amicus brief in Goodman v. Georgia, a case involving prisoners' right to sue states for ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 10
8th Circuit Invalidates BOP Halfway House Policy;
7th Circuit Says Challenge Not Cognizable on Habeas
The Eighth Circuit Court Of Appeals reversed the denial of a federal prisoner's 28 U.S.C. § 2241 habeas corpus petition challenging the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) policy limiting halfway house placement to the lesser of ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 11
Private Prison Contractor Who Allegedly Diverted $1.6 Million in Telephone
Revenues Sues California DOC
A Bakersfield, California businessman, who lost a contract for his private prison housing California Department of Corrections (CDC) prisoners due to allegations that he misappropriated $1.6 million from prisoner collect telephone call revenues, has filed suit ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 11
Two separate Florida District Court of Appeals decisions have reversed the dismissal of two prisoners' civil actions that challenged disciplinary reports.
Prisoner Craig A. Savery was disciplined for possession of narcotics. Savery's initial appeal to Tomoka Correctional Institution's Warden was denied. His second administrative review to the Secretary of the ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 12
A Massachusetts federal district court has departed from the Federal Sentencing Guidelines because of the defendant's illness and the Bureau of Prisons' (BOP) failure to meet its burden that it could provide the most effective" medical treatment.
Robert Pineyro was charged for being a felon in possession of a firearm. ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 12
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court's grant of summary judgment to jail officials on claims of denial of methadone and inadequate medical care.
On April 27, 2000, Richard Foelker reported to the Outagamie County, Wisconsin, Jail to begin serving a sentence for driving under the influence ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 13
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that multiple counts of prisoner sexual abuse against a prison guard had been properly grouped under federal sentencing guidelines.
While employed as a guard at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, Ricardo Vasquez sexually assaulted 4 female prisoners on separate ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 13
The Washington State Supreme Court (Supreme Court) has re-instated a lawsuit challenging Department of Corrections (DOC) Policy 440.000 (Policy). The Policy requires prisoners who are transferred to another prison to pay shipping costs for their property.
Lonnie Burton, Gordon Lebar, James Bringham and Michael Holmberg (collectively Burton), all Washington state ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 14
by Michael Rigby
A Maryland prison is no place to get sick. Virtually every facet of prisoner health care, which has been provided by Tennessee-based Prison Health Services (PHS) since 2000, is in disarray. Prisoners sometimes receive the wrong medicine or none at all; records are poorly kept; physical exams ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 16
The California Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the state's official watchdog" agency, conducted an audit of the Board of Prison Terms (BPT) in July 2005 to determine compliance with the OIG's prior recommendations to correct deficiencies and inefficiencies it identified in its 2002 and 2003 audits of the BPT. ...
This column is intended to provide habeas hints" to prisoners who are considering or handling habeas corpus petitions as their own attorneys (in pro per). The focus of the column is habeas corpus practice under the AEDPA, the 1996 habeas corpus law which now governs habeas corpus practice throughout the ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 20
Prison Reform Revisited: The Unfinished Agenda, Pace University Law Review, Vol. 24, No. 2, Spring 2004 (softback, 460 pp.)
Reviewed by John E. Dannenberg
In October 2003, Pace University Law School hosted a three-day symposium at its White Plains, New York campus, widely attended by leading academics, attorneys, prison reformers, ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 21
by Michael Rigby
Nearly two years after the Prison Rape Elimination Act, (PREA) passed unopposed in the U.S. House and Senate, an attitude of indifference and skepticism surrounding prison sexual assaults still permeates the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADC).
Signed into law on, September 4, 2003, as Public Law 108-79, ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 22
by David M. Reutter
An October, 2004, report issued by Florida's Auditor General (AG) criticizes a contract awarded to Keefe Commissary Services (Keefe) for the operation of the Florida Department of Corrections' (FDOC) 240 prison canteens. The three-year contract that privatized FDOC's prisoner canteen services became effective on October 9, ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 23
In the wake of a huge scandal involving several high ranking, veteran prison officials engaging in sexual activity with female prisoners of the Coffee Creek Correctional Institution, Oregon has enacted legislation criminalizing custodial sexual misconduct.
The law, which became effective July 13, 2005, creates the offenses of Custodial Sexual Misconduct ...
If the Shoe Fits: Did Colorado Prison Officials Look the Other Way While a Guard's Fetish Turned Violent?
by Alan Prendergast
Suppose that you're the warden of a women's prison. Among your valued employees is a prison guard named Dave, whose job puts him in charge of dozens of female ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 26
On April 28, 2005, a New York prisoner was awarded $600,000 for injuries he sustained when other prisoners attacked him on a prison bus.
Plaintiff Daniel Arroyo, 17, was convicted of a youthful offense. On November 9, 1994, while being transported from court to the Rikers Island Correctional Facility, Arroyo ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 26
The California State Auditor detailed four investigations of California Department of Corrections (CDC) employee misconduct completed between July 1 and December 30, 2004, where the tip-offs of miscreance were reported through California's Whistleblower Protection Act (Government Code § 8547 et seq.). Reportable transgressions under the Act include official government wrongdoing ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 27
by David M. Reutter
A September 2004 Florida Auditor General's Report found numerous deficiencies in the Florida Department Of Corrections' (FDOC) pharmaceutical contract with Terry Yon & Associates, Inc. (TYA). The current three-year contract became effective January 1, 2004. Its estimated worth is $72 million.
To distribute prescribed pharmaceuticals, FDOC ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 28
by Alexandra Natapoff
The t-shirts scream Stop Snitchin'!
From Baltimore to Boston to New York; in Pittsburgh, Denver, and Milwaukee, kids are sporting the ominous fashion statement, prompting local fear, outrage, and fierce arguments over crime. Several trials have been disrupted by the t-shirts; some witnesses refuse to testify. Boston's ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 29
On December 17, 2004, the Cook County Board's Litigation Sub-Committee approved a settlement of $362,000, including attorneys' fees, in a case involving brutality against a Cook County jail prisoner by the jail's infamous Special Operations and Response Team (SORT). We have previously reported the brutality of the guards in the ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 30
On January 25, 2005, a Missouri prisoner was awarded $2,500 for pain and suffering incurred when guards kicked him in the groin.
Lance A. Cole, 24, was arrested for violating his probation by possessing a gun. A day earlier Cole had injured himself while out socializing with friends: he fell ...
by John E. Dannenberg
Native American prisoners and Nebraska's then Director of Corrections, Harold Clarke, reached a settlement agreement on March 15, 2005 in U.S. District Court (D. Neb.) to reinstate the Native American prisoners' club (Native American Spiritual and Cultural Awareness) (NASCA) and to permit medicine men and other ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 31
By Nell Bernstein, The New Press; 303 Pages; $25.95
Reviewed by Sheerly Avni
In part because of the war on drugs, in part because of mandatory sentencing laws such as California's three strikes" law, and in part because we have gradually shifted our concept of justice from rehabilitation to punishment ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 32
In a process fabled for reinstating 6070% of the jobs of fired prison guards, a unanimous California State Personnel Board (SPB) ordered the positions of six previously dismissed Youth Authority guards restored with full back pay. And in a strikingly similar case, Connecticut did the same for one guard.
California ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 32
Court Halts Practice of California Prison Guards Getting Unlimited Paid Time to Conduct Union Business on the Job
In a recent expose, the Sacramento Bee revealed that the California prison guards union (CCPOA) cut a side deal two months after its last five-year contract was negotiated in 2001 that removed ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 33
On June 3, 2005, a Kentucky jury awarded $9,000 to a prisoner who was injured while riding in a jail transport vehicle.
Plaintiff Steven Jarmon was imprisoned in a Louisville jail on robbery charges. On February 15, 2000, Jarmon, 38, and several other prisoners boarded a paddy wagon for appearances ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 34
A Florida jury has awarded $225,000 in a case against the City of Clearwater and an individual detective on a claim of false arrest, malicious prosecution, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Plaintiff claimed he was falsely arrested on child molestation charges and the prosecution was continued by the ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 34
by John E. Dannenberg
The Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association (ABA) made a formal recommendation in its Report to the House of Delegates" (August 2005) (Report) that the ABA go on record as urging all federal and state governments to afford Prisoners reasonable opportunity to maintain communication ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 35
U.S. Supreme Court: Faretta Does Not Establish Right Of Pro Se Defendant
to Law Library Access
In a per curiam ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit's grant of habeas relief (Espitia v. Ortiz, 113 Fed. Appx. 802 (2004)) to a California prisoner who, after choosing to represent ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 35
On March 25, 2005, a federal jury awarded a Massachusetts prisoner $250,000 in damages for injuries sustained when he was assaulted by a guard during a strip search.
Guards William Shugrue and a Jeffrey Padula were members all the Inner Perimeter Security Unit (IPS) at the Massachusetts Correctional InstitutionCedar Junction, ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 36
by John E. Dannenberg
California's Governor Schwarzenegger improved health care for women prisoners by signing AB 478 into law, which makes it illegal to deny prenatal and postpartum care (to include basic dental cleaning) and bans shackling during labor and delivery in a locked hospital ward. Assembly Member Sally Lieber ...
More than two-thirds of U.S. jail, prisoners in 2002 were found to be dependent on drugs or alcohol or to abuse them. But many never get the help they need, a study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reveals.
According to the July 2005 report, Substance Dependence, Abuse, and ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 37
by Michael Rigby
Wal-Mart is using prison labor to build a new distribution center in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Local residents have expressed safety concerns and also worry that lower paid prisoners are siphoning jobs away from the community.
Prisoners working at the Wal-Mart site come from the Fox Lake Correctional ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 38
by Michael Rigby
On September 29, 2004, the widow of a one-time suspect in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping settled her wrongful-death lawsuit against the Utah Department of Corrections (DOC) for $150,000.
When 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home on June 5, 2002, police were desperate ...
In September 2004, the Georgia Department of Corrections (CDOC) settled for $15,000 a prisoner lawsuit alleging that understaffing at the maximum-security Georgia State Prison (GSP) compromised prisoner safety. The GDOC also agreed to increase staffing levels in prisoner housing areas at the prison.
GSP prisoner Gregory M. Lamb claimed that ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 39
The prison and military industrial complexes have collided, with a private military contractor poised to make millions off the sweaty backs of prisoners.
Pennsylvania-based Woolrich Inc. plans to use the labor of federal prisoners to fulfill two multi-million-dollar contracts with the Defense Department, according to an October 2, 2005, article ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 40
by John E. Dannenberg
An NBC News I-Team 10 investigation caused considerable media controversy when it reported that a New York state prisoner with end-stage liver disease had received a $400,000 liver transplant in November, 2005, at state expense. This is significant because most states will not approve transplants for ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 40
by Matthew T. Clarke
On August 27, 2005, two registered sex offenders were murdered in Bellingham, Washington, by a vigilante posing as an FBI agent. The killer got the victims' names, address and photographs from the Whatcom County Sheriff's Sex Offender Notification Web Site.
In letters to Seattle Times reporter ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 41
On February 9, 2005, a New York court of claims awarded $2,500 to a state prisoner whose replacement eyeglasses were delayed for 10 months.
Marc Herouard, a prisoner at the Fishkill Correctional Center, discovered on February 7, 2001, that his eyeglasses had been broken in storage while he was confined ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 42
News in Brief:
Arizona: On July 10, 2005, Jerry Booker, 57, a guard at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Eyman in Florence was pistol whipping and threatening to shoot Nyeema Irby, 23, to collect a $50 drug debt Irby owed him when Irby pulled his own pistol and shot and killed ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2006
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2006, page 44
Tennessee lawmakers are complaining that their prison guards are helping to drugs and other contraband into the state's prisons. They specifically are bemoaning that those guards are being allowed to quit or resign without facing criminal prosecution when caught.
Tennessee employs more than 2,400 employees in its 15 prisons. Salaries ...
