From the late 19th century into the depression years, Americans struggled economically. For the man and woman on the street to the businesses, companies and manufacturers vainly trying to keep their enterprises afloat, those were difficult times. States strained to overcome the desperate financial situation which held citizens captive as ...
The big news this month is that Prison Legal News is closing its Seattle office and consolidating its operations on the east coast in Vermont. We have had our Seattle office in 1996 and since 2004 have maintained offices in both Seattle and Vermont. The consolidation comes as part of ...
by Matt Clarke
On August 27, 2009, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an almost $102 million judgment in a lawsuit filed against the federal government after the FBI helped an informant secure the convictions of four men for a murder they didn’t commit.
In March 1965, Edward “Teddy” ...
This story has a bias. It’s in favor of human rights for all people.
So if you think it’s proper for prison guards to call African-American prisoners “niggers” and gay prisoners “fags,” then this story may not be for you. If, however, you think that prisoners deserve to be treated ...
Across the nation, state and local governments are facing gaping holes in their budgets. As a result many are turning to cheap or free prison labor, and in some cases prisoners have taken the place of free-world citizens laid off due to budget cuts. State and local agencies have increasingly ...
Most people familiar with prisoners’ rights issues know attorney Fred Cohen as an advocate for juvenile prisoners and prisoners with mental health issues. They have also seen his byline in the Correctional Law Reporter, which he co-founded more than 20 years ago, and followed his work as a Federal Court ...
On February 23, 2009, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew F. Kennelly granted partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit challenging certain strip and visual body cavity searches conducted at Illinois’ Cook County Jail (CCJ).
The plaintiffs were separated into two classes. The Class I members comprised ...
In an effort to trim a $26.3 billion budget deficit, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger slashed $90 million from a diversion program designed to offer certain non-violent drug offenders the opportunity to participate in substance abuse treatment instead of going to prison.
In 2000, in a rare show of rationality by ...
A study, sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and released in December 2008, concludes that “Incarceration may not only affect those individuals incarcerated, but also those family members and friends left behind in the community.”
In a unique approach to the study of the disparity of physical ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 20
On August 10, 2009, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of a CIA contractor who beat to death a detainee at a U.S. military outpost in Afghanistan. The contractor’s sentence was reversed due to an error in the enhancement level.
In 2001, the U.S. military forcibly took ...
In a culture where it is socially acceptable for celebrities, advertisers and even movies to joke about the unfunny fact of prison rape, it should come as no surprise that almost 4% of prisoners in the United States have reported being sexually victimized while incarcerated.
As part of the Prison ...
In 2007, Kimme Putman, a Washington state resident, filed suit against the Wenatchee Valley Medical Center and a number of its employees. Putnam’s lawsuit alleged negligence by medical personnel when they failed to properly diagnose her ovarian cancer in 2001 and 2002, while it was still in the early stages. ...
Few prisoners would be shocked to learn that they are paying too much for items sold in prison commissaries or canteens. The Illinois Dept. of Corrections (IDOC), however, has taken commissary price-gouging to an extreme level.
In order to generate more revenue to help fund an over-capacity prison system, the ...
The number of people serving terms of supervised release after leaving federal prison is creeping ever closer to 100,000. As judges and probation officers attempt to manage their growing caseloads, more and more judges are imposing supervised release conditions that unfairly restrict ex-prisoners from successful reentry.
The advent of supervised ...
by Matt Clarke
In the 1980s, faced with overcrowded prisons and probationers who often failed to pay their court-ordered fees and fines, some Texas counties came up with what sounded like a good idea: the Probationer Restitution Center (PRC). A PRC is essentially a group of dedicated jail beds used ...
In June 2009, the District Attorney’s office in Santa Barbara, California filed charges against Roland Ygelsias and Miguel Jacobo, former employees of U.S. Extradition Services, a company that contracts with law enforcement agencies to transport prisoners to and from prisons and jails.
Ygelsias and Jacobo were accused of engaging in ...
by John E. Dannenberg
Jail prisoners in California, Florida, Michigan and Texas have unknowingly had their phone calls to defense attorneys secretly recorded and handed over to prosecutors. The recordings surfaced before trial, when prosecutors were required to divulge all the evidence they possessed to the prisoners’ lawyers.
Highly indignant ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 27
On September 9, 2008, following more than ten years of compliance with Special Sex Offender Sentencing Alternative (SSOSA) restrictions and guidelines, a Washington state trial court relieved Brian A. McMillan of his duty to register as a sex offender. The State of Washington appealed the court’s decision, arguing that “clear ...
Last year, honoring the request of state Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, the Office of the Independent Ombudsman (OIO) of the Texas Youth Commission investigated the reason for the “alarming trend regarding adult certifications” of youthful offenders in Texas. What the OIO reported was a 31 percent increase, between 2007 and ...
Following its recent decision in Arrington v. Daniels, 516 F.3d 1106 (9th Cir. 2008) [PLN, June 2009, p.44], the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down another federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) rule that limits early release for certain prisoners who participate in the BOP’s Residential Drug ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 29
Eighteen months after surviving a motion for summary judgment, California prisoner William Milton agreed to a settlement of $35,000 in a case involving denial and delay of medical treatment. Though unpublished, the district court’s March 2007 order denying defendants’ motion for summary judgment includes an insightful discussion of why, despite ...
by John E. Dannenberg
In what appears to be the first attempt to comply with federal court orders to reduce California’s prison population, the State Legislature enacted Senate Bill 18, which, effective January 25, 2010, places over 20% of the parole population on a new non-revocable parole (Penal Code (PC) ...
In June, August and November 2008, the Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) in New Orleans, Louisiana was the target of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation conducted by the agency’s Civil Rights Division.
Under the auspices of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997, federal investigators ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 31
On September 18, 2009, a federal jury awarded a New Hampshire state prisoner $80,000 in punitive damages for a violation of his Eighth Amendment rights, plus $1 in nominal damages.
While incarcerated at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men on December 20, 2003, Shawn Cheever was transferred to the ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 32
On August 8, 2009, just days after a three-judge federal panel ruled that California’s prison system was dangerously overcrowded, a major riot erupted at the California Institution for Men at Chino, a prison about 40 miles east of Los Angeles.
The riot began in a 200-bed dorm and eventually engulfed ...
The Justice Project recently published its policy review concerning prosecutorial accountability in our nation’s criminal justice system. Entitled, Improving Prosecutorial Accountability, the report was prepared by the president of The Justice Project, John F. Terzano, Esq., along with Executive Director Joyce A. McGee, Esq. and Policy Coordinator Alanna Holt.
The ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 34
On September 13, 2009, the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) reached a settlement with the parents of an Idaho state prisoner who was driven to suicide by squalid conditions at a GEO Group-run private prison in Texas, where he had been transferred. The IDOC agreed to pay the prisoner’s estate ...
South Carolina state prisoner Kevin Bell, 42, breezed through the last six years of his sentence with the help of local law enforcement officials. In 1996, Bell began serving a 13-year prison term for cocaine trafficking. Six years later he was sent to the Cherokee County Detention Center, at the ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 35
The State of New York agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a prisoner’s slip and fall claim that occurred at the Groveland Correctional Facility.
The settlement comes in a claim filed by prisoner James Mahoney, who was assigned as a recreation aide between the hours of 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 35
A $750,000 settlement was paid to the mother of an Alabama mentally ill prisoner who died as the result of exposure to extreme heat while on psychotropic medication.
Just four days after his admission to Kilby Correctional Facility (KCF), prisoner Farron Barksdale, 32, was found unconscious in his segregation cell. ...
On September 16, 2009, U.S. District Judge Marcia S. Krieger granted in part and denied in part a motion for summary judgment by Prison Legal News (PLN) in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case wherein PLN sought the disclosure of a gruesome video and autopsy photos related to the ...
In a July 2009 report funded by the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States, author Christine S. Scott-Hayward examines how shrinking budgets are impacting state corrections policies and practices.
The story is in the numbers, and the numbers are staggering. More than one out of ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 37
The State of Washington paid $60,000 to settle a prisoner’s claim that he was injured due to a chemical spill.
While working in the kitchen at the McNeil Island Correction Center, prisoner George D. Douglas reached for a chemical bottle to clean stainless steel. The bottle was on a shelf ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 37
Geo Group, Inc., one of the country’s largest private prison and detention operators, has agreed to acquire Just Care. Just Care operates a 354-bed medical and mental health care unit in Columbia, South Carolina.
In announcing the acquisition, GEO Group said it expected an additional $30 million in annual revenue ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 38
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) policies that had the effect of prohibiting a prisoner from meeting with other members of his religion and possessing religious items may violate his rights under the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 38
On March 16, 2009, a New York Court of Claims awarded $2,093,420 in damages to a man who was wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting his 4-year-old child. He had spent more than two years in a maximum-security prison.
During “an extremely unpleasant and highly bitter divorce and custody battle,” Amine ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 39
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 ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 39
A Washington state woman has been awarded $174,000 in damages after the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) miscalculated her sentence, causing her to stay in prison an extra 18 months.
Melanie Hinkle was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in the second degree and was sentenced to 120 months in ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 40
On June 2, 2009, a Canadian appellate court affirmed a decision by Federal Court Prothonotary Martha Milczynski awarding $12,000 to Barry Carr, a federal prisoner.
Carr had accused Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) of negligence and breaching its duty of care to him while he was housed at Millhaven Institution ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 40
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a prison official’s threat to retaliate against a prisoner for use of the institutional grievance procedure made the prisoner’s administrative remedies unavailable.
The appellate ruling came in a civil rights action filed by Georgia prisoner Willie Turner. He claimed that while ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 41
On July 28, 2009, within weeks of settling a similar wrongful conviction lawsuit that resulted in a $3.4 million payment to the estate of Kenneth Waters, the town of Ayer, Massachusetts agreed to pay $3.1 million to settle a federal complaint brought by former prisoner Dennis Maher. PLN previously reported ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 42
A New York Court of Claims has awarded $80,000 in damages to a prisoner at the Auburn Correctional Facility in connection with a prisoner-on-prisoner assault. Previously, in an October 1, 2007 order, the court found the State of New York 100% liable because the assault “was reasonably foreseeable and a ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 42
Florida’s Department of Corrections paid $200,000 to settle a lawsuit involving a prisoner’s suicide death. That settlement is the maximum allowed under law when suing a state agency.
Prior to his entry into prison, prisoner David Hansen had a history of mental illness, which included suicide attempts. His transition into ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 42
In August 2009, a former Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) guard was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison in connection with a vicious assault on a handcuffed prisoner.
Eugene Morris, Jr., a TDCJ sergeant at the Ferguson Unit, was offended by prisoner Robert Tanzini’s use of a racial ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 43
Fourth Circuit: Heck Bar Inapplicable to § 1983 False Imprisonment Suit
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has joined five other circuits in holding that a former prisoner’s § 1983 false imprisonment claim is not barred by the “favorable termination” requirement of Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994).
Lee ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 44
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, ...
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court vacated a lower court order which found that a sheriff had violated state law when he released sentenced prisoners on a GPS-monitoring program.
On March 8, 2007, Edward Donohue was convicted of his third drunk driving offense. Twelve days later, Middlesex Superior Court Judge Diane ...
A directive issued by the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC) that limits the award of educational sentence credit to only one Associate’s Degree cannot be applied retroactively without running afoul of the ex post facto clause of the U.S. and state Constitutions, the Indiana Court of Appeals decided on June ...
In an important case of first impression, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that an assessment of a prisoner’s trust account without an actual seizure of funds implicates a property interest. On remand, however, the district court decided that the violation of that right resulted in ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has reversed the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a Colorado prisoner who requested but was denied protection from prison gang members.
Scott L. Howard, a self-described “openly homosexual” prisoner of “slight build,” was a target from the moment he arrived ...
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a lower court improperly deferred a qualified immunity determination to the jury. The appellate court decided that jail guards, a jail physician and a paramedic were not entitled to qualified immunity in a Tennessee prisoner’s death, though qualified immunity was granted ...
by John E. Dannenberg
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court’s decision granting summary judgment to Orange County, California jail officials who allegedly used excessive force while restraining a detainee. The appellate court found that because there were triable issues of fact, summary judgment was not appropriate. ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 49
By September 1, 2010, a long-standing Texas prison tradition will come to an end--the centralized release of prisoners.
The vast majority of Texas prisoners released each year--more than 42,000 in 2008--are processed out through a red-brick walled prison built in 1842 designated the Huntsville Unit that Texas prisoners call “The ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2010, page 50
Australia: Ipswich resident Kurt James Milner, a former security guard, pleaded guilty in January 2010 to charges of possessing cartoon pornography. Police recovered 64 images of “cartoon child exploitation material” from Milner’s com-puter, including X-rated cartoon images of child characters from The Simpsons, The Incredibles and The Powerpuff Girls. As ...
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that attorney’s fees awarded under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) may not be withheld to pay debts owed to the federal government.
South Dakota attorney Catherine G. Ratliff successfully represented two claimants in their efforts to obtain Social Security benefits. ...
