by David M. Reutter
Another state prison system that subjected itself to the experiment of privatized medical services has learned the same hard lesson suffered by other states: a trail of inadequate care that leaves prisoners dead or maimed. This time the Michigan prison system is under pressure by the ...
by David M. Reutter
"Step on a man's foot once, and a polite apology will do. Do it twice, and a profuse apology is in order. Do it thrice, and you have left the land of apology and entered the arena of self-defense." That saying is the beginning of U.S. ...
by David M. Reutter
A Michigan federal district court has held that the use of in-cell restraints for punitive reasons constitutes torture. In reaching that conclusion, the Court reopened its previous judgment concerning mental health claims and issued a preliminary injunction.
The Court's ruling comes in the Hadix case, a ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 10
By Executive Order S-6-08 (May 15, 2006), California?s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger created the High Risk Sex Offender Task Force (HRSOTF). Its job was to advise the Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) on policy upgrades regarding (1) notification of local law enforcement of the release from ...
This issue marks PLN?s 17th anniversary and our 205th issue since we first started publishing in May, 1990. This makes PLN the longest published, by far, independent prisoner publication in US history. About 95% of PLN?s articles remain written by current or former prisoners around the country. In this time ...
by David M. Reutter
Three years after its scathing report on the corporate nepotism that was lining the pockets of administrators of Florida's Prison Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE), Florida's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accounting (OPPAGA) has issued a progress report. The fiascos revealed by the OPPAGA?s ...
by David M. Reutter
In its continual effort to expose corruption within prisons, PLN has uncovered the confidential settlement between Florida?s Prison Rehabilitation Industries and Diversified Industries (PRIDE) and the corporations spawned by its former directors? corporations.
Our January 2005 cover article detailed how PRIDE corporate executives and directors had ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 12
On October 14, 2005, a federal jury in Nevada awarded $18,700 to a state prisoner who suffered a retaliatory transfer and punishment after he voiced complaints about the prison?s food and grievance procedures.
According to the lawsuit, prisoner Phillip Lyons was elected president of the NAACP?s local prison chapter, the ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 13
Indianapolis' Sex Offender Ordinance Banning Presence in Public Places with Children Enjoined
An Indiana federal district court has granted a preliminary injunction to the plaintiffs in an action challenging a City of Indianapolis ordinance that bans sex offenders from being within 1,000 feet of a public playground, recreation center, bathing ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 14
by Jennifer Van Bergen
The US Department of Justice has implemented a secretive new prison program segregating ?high-security-risk? Muslim and Middle Eastern prisoners and tightly restricting their communications with the outside world in apparent violation of federal law, according to documents obtained by Raw Story and PLN.
Quietly implemented in ...
by David M. Reutter
The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has issued a report that “urges Congress to repeal or amend specified portions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA).” That report was sent for approval and action by the ABA’s House of Delegates in February 2007, which approved ...
Doing "Katrina Time"
by Bob Williams
Last month, PLN's cover story addressed the terrors and tribulations faced by prisoners when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans on August 29, 2005 -- not just the horrors of the storm, but also the brutality and abuse inflicted by ill-prepared and sadistic prison guards. ...
by Kent Russell
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 AEDPA, the 1996 habeas corpus law which now governs habeas corpus practice ...
Arizona prisoners are so adept at defrauding the IRS that U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth (AZ) dubbed the dilemma ?Operation H&R (Cell) Block.?
The business of bilking Uncle Sam from within Arizona prisons accounted for about half of the state?s fraudulent income tax claims in 2005. ?It?s time we put it ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 24
The family of a man who hanged himself in a Washington jail managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has settled with the federal government for $700,000, according to an announcement made on January 31, 2007.
Although he had expressed suicidal thoughts, Ricky Sampson, 39, was left unattended at ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
A report by the New Jersey State Auditor released in July 2005, finds that the $1.5 million Life Skills Academy (LSA) contract was not properly monitored by prison system officials. The problems included prisoners who had graduated from the program previously and were facilitating the program ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
It has often been said that it?s hard to tell the cops from the crooks. In Texas this may be true for prison guards as well. In April 2006, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) released information indicating that record numbers of guards have been ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
On May 16, 2006, a New York federal district court magistrate recommended awarding $143,774.55 in attorney fees and costs to the attorneys who represented a prisoner in a civil rights action.
Byron Lake was a prisoner in the Schenectady County (New York) Jail. Due to overcrowding, ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 28
Grant County, Kentucky, has settled with a prisoner who was brutally raped in the county's jail for $1.4 million. The September 1, 2005, settlement was the largest to date in a series of similar lawsuits against the county.
The victim, Joshua Sester, who had just turned 18 and weighed 125 ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 28
Division 1 of the Washington Court of Appeals has ruled that the State Department of Corrections (DOC) must afford minimal due process to prisoners whose risk assessment levels it intends to demote.
In 2000, Dion Xavier Adams, a Washington State prisoner, was sentenced to 108 months in prison for drug ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 28
Division 2 of the Washington State Court of Appeals has vacated a restitution order imposed in a criminal case because the state took no action to secure payment for over 10 years.
On June 26, 1986, Daniel Sigo pled guilty to attempted 1st degree theft in the Pierce County Superior ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 29
Prisoner's Death After Restraint Settled By Los Angeles County For $80,000
The Los Angeles County Claims Board settled a wrongful death lawsuit for $80,000 in December 2006 that resulted from a jail prisoner dying after being restrained of his assaultive behavior.
On January 10, 2005, Pitchess Detention Center (North) jail ...
Eleventh Circuit Remands ADA and § 1983 Claims for Amended Complaint
by John E. Dannenberg
In two similar cases, the Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued orders remanding prisoner complaints of Georgia?s violations of Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA; 42 U.S.C. § 12131, et seq.) ...
In August 2006, State Controller Steve Westly reported his fiscal review of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation?s (CDCR) prisoner healthcare delivery system expenditures to Robert Sillen, Receiver for the California Prison Receivership (see: PLN, Mar. 2006, p.1, Federal Court Seizes California Prisons? Medical Care; Appoints Receiver With Unprecedented ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 32
Thirty-one guards from Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP), California?s supermax lockup, filed suit on May 23, 2006 in Sacramento Superior Court against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation following the discovery that PBSP prisoners had obtained guards? names, Social Security numbers (SSNs), work attendance data and home addresses. Two ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 32
A federal court in Missouri held in a class action lawsuit that a prison policy barring elective abortions was unconstitutional and invalid.
The Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) and its medical provider, Correctional Medical Services (CMS), routinely transported women prisoners to abortion clinics at the prisoners? requests prior to July ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 33
On May 1, 2006, the State of Washington agreed to pay prisoner Allan Parmelee $15,000 to settle a lawsuit stemming from the Department of Corrections (DOC) refusal to provide him with records he had requested under the Public Disclosure Act (PDA), RCW 42.17, et seq.
Pursuant to the PDA, Parmelee, ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 34
Two county jail chaplains in different states are being accused by female prisoners of seeking sex from them while in custody.
When she was held in Indiana?s Morgan County Jail, Susan L. Robbins, 38, was involved in the jail?s GED program. That program was started by the jail?s chaplain, Homer ...
by John E. Dannenberg
On December 19, 2006, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) settled with Prison Legal News (PLN) over PLN's complaints of CDCR's restrictive publications-approval policies for California state prisoners. On April 12, 2007, PLN filed the complaint in federal district court in Oakland giving the ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 35
Louisiana?s Third Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a trial court?s order imposing a $128,000 court cost fee assessed against award winning former prison journalist Wilbert Rideau. PLN previously reported on Rideau?s release.
Rideau is best known for his work as editor of Angola Prison?s state funded newspaper, The Angolite, ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 36
A North Carolina prisoner who claimed jailers brutally beat him in the Mecklenburg County Jail (MCJ) will receive $110,000 in exchange for dropping his lawsuit against the county.
Paul Midgett alleged that while imprisoned at MCJ on May 10, 2000, he was pummeled by guards Paul E. Gee, Doltheia F. ...
by John E. Dannenberg
A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court held on January 22, 2007 that when a prisoner files an action governed by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), the question of whether he properly exhausted administrative remedies before filing suit is an affirmative defense; the prisoner does not have ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 37
Missouri's Lethal Injection Protocol Unconstitutional; Executions Stayed
Finding the current method of Missouri's execution of prisoners by lethal injection subjected condemned prisoners to "an unacceptable risk of suffering unconstitutional pain and suffering," a Missouri federal district court stayed all executions in the state.
Before the Court was the complaint of ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 38
After spending nearly twenty-one years incarcerated for murder, Donald M. Paradis was released from Idaho?s death row on April 10, 2001. Now, just over fiver years later, Paradis is set to receive $900,000 for his wrongful conviction and incarceration. This case demonstrates an especially egregious case of police and prosecutorial ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 38
by Lovisa Stannow and Kathy Hall-Martinez
The enormous financial and moral costs of the ?war on drugs? have been well-documented over the past few years. Less known is the devastating link between U.S. drug policy and the epidemic of prisoner rape.
With laws requiring longer sentences for drug offenses and ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 39
Prosecutors Check Prospective Jurors' Background, Hoping to Disqualify Them
An Ohio murder case has exposed a new tactic that prosecutors are using to disqualify potential jurors -- the use of a federal criminal records database to run background checks.
Timothy Jordan is an African-American who was charged with aggravated murder ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 40
For a violation of federal environmental laws, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PDOC) has been fined $37,510. That penalty came in a settlement agreement between PDOC and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The agreement resulted from an administrative complaint for violations of the Clean Air Act (CAA) at the ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
Ohio and Illinois have recently expanded the scope of persons required to register with the state as sex offenders to include persons who have never been charged with or convicted of a sex crime.
In Ohio, the law was intended to register persons suspected of having ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 41
The Circuit Court for Leon County, Florida, on October 4, 2006, awarded a Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) prisoner $1,030 in damages and court costs in an action seeking recovery of the cost of legal copies made for the prisoner.
Prisoner Elijah Jackson, following the decision in Smith v. Department ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 41
A Pennsylvania state prisoner who was injured when a guard slammed the cell slot door on his arm after the prisoner didn?t retract his arm soon enough was awarded $10,000 in punitive damages by a federal jury on January 28, 2006.
Greene Correctional Institution prisoner Demetrious Bailey sued Pennsylvania DOC ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 41
Suit For Untreated Diabetic Prisoner's Death In Los Angeles County Jail Lobby Settled For $700,000
The Los Angeles County Claims Board settled out a wrongful death lawsuit for $700,000 that resulted from a jail prisoner dying from lack of insulin after sitting for three days unattended in the jail's lobby ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 42
Arizona: On May 1, 2006, Timothy Monk, 34, a prisoner at the Wilmot Prison, took prison guard Laurel Kennedy hostage while armed with a razor blade shank, demanding a transfer to the state of Montana in exchange for her release. Monk released Kennedy unharmed after six hours and then surrendered. ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2007
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2007, page 44
The Washington Supreme Court has held that Mason County had no duty to warn the public of a sex offender in the community, thus the County could not be held liable for negligence.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the family of 15-year-old Jennie Mae Osborn, who was ...
