by David M. Reutter
For hundreds of years the cramped, overcrowded and often filthy confines of dungeons, prisons, jails and other places of imprisonment have served as incubators for infectious diseases, which have killed more prisoners than any other single factor. Thus, the recent outbreak of H1N1 virus, commonly known ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 7
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court’s denial of summary judgment to prison officials who had failed to safeguard a Texas state prisoner, saying their ineffective attempts to protect him were sufficient.
Gregory Moore was incarcerated at the Beto Unit for sex offenses when a guard used ...
February is traditionally the height of cold and flu season in the United States and this month’s cover story probably proves the axiom that if America catches cold, prisons catch pneumonia. Swine flu has been in the news quite a bit lately including its effects in prisons and jails. Which ...
by David M. Reutter
The systemic failure of medical care at California’s Sacramento County Main Jail (SCMJ) resulted in a prisoner’s avoidable death that has cost taxpayers $1.45 million. For years, SCMJ’s healthcare system has been severely deficient – yet jail officials continue to use the county’s Correctional Health Services ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 9
Due to a roughly $9 billion state budget deficit, the Washington State legislature approved a plan to offer 90-day rent subsidies for selected prisoners who are eligible for early release. The program is expected to save taxpayers an estimated $1.5 million over the first two years of its implementation.
As ...
by Margaret Colgate Love1
In the past twenty years, a relentlessly punitive political environment has given rise to a wide-ranging network of collateral penalties and disqualifications that isolate and stigmatize those convicted of crime long after the sentence imposed by the court has been fully served. As Jeremy Travis, President ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 11
On April 13, 2009, U.S. District Court Judge Harry F. Barnes adopted a magistrate’s report and recommendation that found an Arkansas prisoner should be awarded $625 after being punished for refusing to work on the Sabbath.
Levester Gillard, a practicing member of the New Testament House of Prayer, was told ...
by David M. Reutter
Despite federal oversight of its prison medical care, Delaware “continues to have a great deal more to achieve before it comes into substantial compliance with all provisions of the MOA” (Memorandum of Agreement) the state entered into with the U.S. Department of Justice.
That was the ...
The military’s treatment of Army prisoners is “part of a broader pattern the military has of just throwing people in jail and not letting them talk to their attorneys, not let visitors come, and this is outrageous. In the civilian world even murderers get visits from their friends,” according to ...
Charles L. Overby is a man who leads dual lives; a man who has each foot planted firmly in two very different worlds. In one world he is a champion of the free press. In the other, he is one of a group at the helm of a corporation that ...
by David M. Reutter
Three Florida prison guards have been arrested and charged in the December 16, 2008 beating of a handcuffed prisoner at the Charlotte Correctional Institution (CCI). The criminal proceedings can be viewed as a fulfillment of Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) Secretary Walter McNeil’s vow to prosecute ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 19
The Washington Department of Corrections (WDOC) agreed to a settlement in a class action lawsuit alleging violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that results in not only a policy change but monetary payments to class members.
Represented by the Seattle law firm of Budge and Heipt, WDOC prisoner ...
by Matt Clarke
On August 6, 2009, a federal judge ruled that hearings held by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (BPP) to determine whether onerous sex offender conditions should be imposed on parolees not convicted of sex offenses had violated a parolee’s right to procedural due process.
Ray ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 21
The State of Washington paid $6,000 to settle a wrongful imprisonment claim.
The claim involved the probation violation arrest of Kenneth Butler. When he reported to the community corrections office on January 23, 2008, as required, he was advised that his probation officer, Andrea Maldonado, wanted him to check in ...
by Matt Clarke
On December 12, 2008, a riot erupted at the GEO Group-run Reeves County Detention Center (RCDC) in Pecos, Texas, which houses federal immigration detainees. The uprising was triggered by the death of a prisoner who had received inadequate medical care. A second, more serious riot at the ...
Five corrections employees at the Manhattan Detention Complex in New York City, also called “the Tombs,” were disciplined after it was learned that the jail chaplain in charge of Jewish affairs threw a lavish six-hour party for an Orthodox Jewish prisoner. Two of those employees later resigned.
Rabbi Leib Glanz ...
The state prison in Warren has been hammered in recent months by a prisoner murder and other violence, a prisoner hunger strike, legislative investigations exposing mismanagement and poor guard morale, and a request by human-rights groups for a federal probe of prisoner mistreatment. Most recently, the state Corrections commissioner, Martin ...
On January 22, 2009, Rikers Island, New York guards Michael “Mack” McKie and Khalid “Nel” Nelson were charged with enterprise corruption after it was learned they were using a group of prisoners to enforce discipline and extort other offenders at the Rikers facility for juveniles. A third guard, Denise “Mama ...
In a 2009 report by the Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank and public interest advocacy group at New York University School of Law, the authors conclude that the state of Maryland’s assessment of a $40 monthly parole supervision fee is “a penny-wise, pound-foolish policy” that likely does more ...
by John E. Dannenberg and Alex Friedmann
On August 8, 2008, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) discharged disabled prisoner Michael R. McHone from FCI Edgefield in South Carolina to spend his first night at a motel. The next day – a Saturday – a prison employee drove McHone to ...
by Matt Clarke
The Bureau of Justice Statistics recently released statistics on state and local law enforcement arrest-related deaths for the years 2003 to 2006. Although Georgia, Montana and Maryland failed to respond to the survey and Nevada and Wyoming only provided information for one year, the statistics showed that ...
On May 19, 2009, Arizona state prisoner Marcia Powell, 48, collapsed after being left in an unshaded outdoor chain-link cage for four hours under a scorching summer sun. She later died. Temperatures at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Perryville had reached as high as 107 degrees that afternoon. The guards responsible ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 33
Tyson Lynch is a hearing examiner for the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board; his job responsibilities include determining which convicted sex offenders pose a threat to the community. Yet it wasn’t long after he was hired in October 2008 that Lynch began to brag openly on Facebook, an on-line social ...
by David M. Reutter
In denying a motion to dismiss, the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts held on July 1, 2009 that prison supervisors could be held liable for the sexual abuse of a prisoner because they failed to train, supervise and investigate claims concerning repeated rumors of a guard’s ...
The Adam Walsh Act (AWA) was enacted by Congress in 2006 with much fanfare. Proponents argued that the law, which requires the establishment of a national sex offender registry, would help protect children from predators. But according to a recent report from the Justice Policy Institute, the AWA has actually ...
In a July 2009 report by The Sentencing Project, a national non-profit organization engaged in research and advocacy on criminal justice policy issues, Ashley Nellis and Ryan S. King examine the consequences of the expanding use of life sentences in America and make recommendations for changes in law, policy and ...
by Matt Clarke
When Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle signed legislation to grant early release to certain prisoners, he just couldn’t win. “It went too far,” said Republicans. “It didn’t go far enough,” retorted his fellow Democrats. What in fact Governor Doyle did was authorize a new form of parole.
Wisconsin ...
On February 13, 2009, following an investigation by the Los Angeles Times, the L.A. County Probation Department suspended its practice of billing parents and legal guardians for each day their children spent in juvenile detention.
The practice was generally legal under a 20-year-old California law intended to prevent families from ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 38
In what one lawyer described as round one, Michigan’s Lenawee County has paid $245,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging that the deficient medical care at the County’s jail caused a prisoner’s death.
The 24 page second amended complaint in the action begins with an outline of a County that was ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 38
Michigan’s Lenawee County Jail (LCJ) paid $325,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a former prisoner who was denied medical care before and after his appendix ruptured. This is the second such settlement within a month. (See accompanying article.)
As was reported in our previous coverage of a settlement in ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 5, 2007, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a guard who used a cattle prod to shock a prisoner without any provocation caused more than a de minimis injury.
Dale Keith Payne, a Texas state prisoner, was working at the back gate of ...
On September 22, 2008, PLN requested public documents from the City of Hartford, Connecticut related to a lawsuit involving a prisoner who committed suicide; the suit had resulted in a $403,164 judgment against the City. [See: PLN, Feb. 2009, p.24].
Hartford Assistant Corporation Counsel Jonathan Beamon agreed to provide the ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 29, 2009, the State of Ohio’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released an investigative report concerning the relationship between Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) Assistant Director Michael Randle and Keith B. Key, President of Columbus-based KBK Enterprises, a real estate development company. ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 42
On February 25, 2008, Judge William Thomas McPhee of the Thurston County Superior Court entered an injunction prohibiting the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) from withholding cost of incarceration and crime victim compensation from a federal prisoner serving time in the DOC.
Harry Whitman was transferred to the custody of ...
by Matt Clarke
On August 4, 2009, a consent decree was entered in a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of jail prisoners with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) over conditions of confinement at the Canyon County Jail in Caldwell, Idaho. The defendants agreed to eliminate overcrowding ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 43
In April, 2009, a federal jury awarded $2.1 million in a lawsuit filed against guards at California’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility for their negligence and excessive use of force that caused a prisoner’s death.
The prisoner, John Fitzgerald Young, suffered from chronic mental illness that required psychiatric medication. On ...
by Matt Clarke
On October 15, 2009, the Wyoming Department of Corrections’ Wind River Mushroom Farm in Shoshoni was sold at auction for an undisclosed amount. The agricultural program, which began in 2004 as an $8 million public-private partnership that used state funds and federal loan guarantees, was once called ...
by Matt Clarke
On August 18, 2009, a settlement was reached in a class-action lawsuit over conditions of confinement at the Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC). The lawsuit dates back to 1971 and had been on the federal district court’s inactive docket from 1999 until 2004 following a 1993 consent ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 44
On May 22, 2009, a California federal jury awarded a state prisoner $6,500 on his claims of medical negligence and deliberate indifference. Todd A. Ashker, a prisoner at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP), sued Dr. M.C. Sayre after Sayre discontinued Asker’s pain medication and treatment for his disabled right ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 45
On July 16, 2009, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed in part a district court’s dismissal of a lawsuit involving the nondelivery of newsletters sent in bulk to a Wyoming state prison.
Derrick R. Parkhurst, a Wyoming prisoner, is chairman of the Wyoming Prisoners’ Association (WPA) and an official ...
Between May and June of last year, hundreds of federal economic stimulus checks began to arrive at various Texas prisons, addressed to prisoners who were thought to be eligible to receive them. Those payments were part of 1,700 stimulus checks erroneously sent to prisoners nationwide.
On February 13, 2009, Congress ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 46
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a district court had erred when it dismissed a prisoner’s retaliation-based civil rights suit as de minimis when the prisoner’s alleged injury was exposure to freezing cold for four-and-a-half hours on four consecutive nights.
Juarez Miguel Bibbs, a Texas state prisoner, filed ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 47
On June 7, 2009, Scott Kernan, undersecretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) – the operational head of the state’s sprawling prison system – was arrested by the California Highway Patrol for driving under the influence in his state-issued vehicle.
Kernan, who was subsequently suspended from work ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 47
A federal jury has awarded $50,000 to a prisoner who was subjected to excessive use of force while in handcuffs at Florida’s Everglades Correctional Institution (ECI).
When housed at ECI on July 1, 2006, prisoner Michael Curry was called to the captain’s office to be questioned about an incident in ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 48
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court’s award of $1,500 to an Arkansas prisoner who was denied kosher meals. The Court of Appeals also affirmed the lower court’s ruling that upheld the prison system’s grooming policy.
Michael J. Fegans, an Arkansas state prisoner, filed a civil rights ...
In July 2009, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin entered an opinion reversing an appellate court’s decision that instructed a lower court to order remedial damages in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of Milwaukee County jail prisoners.
The suit was originally filed pro se in March 1996 by Milton J. ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 49
by David M. Reutter
When it comes to prison and jail telephone services, it’s all about how much money can be made without regard to the people who are bilked by for-profit phone companies. That is the sad conclusion that must be drawn from a recent decision by Florida’s Public ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 49
After more than two decades of intense advocacy by the ACLU, in August 2009 the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) agreed to end its practice of prohibiting prisoners with HIV from participating in work release programs. PLN has previously reported on this issue. [See: PLN, Dec. 2008, p.28].
Since 1987, ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 50
Alabama: On October 30, 2009, Richard Hawthorne, 51, a member of the Escambia County School Board, was in-dicted on seven charges stemming from allegations that he fondled female prisoners at the Escambia County Detention Center where he formerly worked as a guard. Two female prisoners reported that Hawthorne had molested ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 55
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a jury’s verdict that found a municipality liable despite there being no finding of liability on the part of the individual defendants. The facts in this case involved a claim of deliberate indifference to a prisoner’s serious medical needs.
In January 2003, ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2010, page 55
Four-Year Statute of Limitations Applies to § 1983 Claims Filed in Florida
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 actions filed in Florida have a four-year statute of limitations. The appellate court’s ruling reversed a Florida federal district court’s dismissal of a civil rights ...
