In January 2010, Scott Howard, a 39-year-old federal prisoner, made his way briskly into a hearing room in the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building in Washington, D.C. He was neatly dressed in blazer, slacks and tie, and quite nervous about what he was about to do. He was determined to ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 10
Medical care for more than 150,000 prisoners in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) is contracted out to two state university medical systems – the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC).
In fiscal year (FY) 2009, the TDCJ gave ...
Prison officials at the Federal Correctional Institution in Pekin, Illinois, a medium-security facility, were the subject of an FBI investigation related to a prisoner who died in agony after being denied medical care.
Adam Montoya, 36, was not at FCI Pekin long – a mere 18 days – before his ...
Welcome to the last issue of PLN for 2011. Since we began publishing PLN, the issue of prisoner rape and sexual assault has been an important priority. There has been some improvement, at least as far as raising public awareness around this issue, over the past two decades. But the ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 14
Earlier this year PLN reported on the phenomenon of suspects who falsely confess to crimes they did not commit. [See: PLN, April 2011, p.18]. As false confessions occur in wrongful conviction cases with disturbing regularity, this article revisits and expounds on this important topic and the tragic consequences that can ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 16
When Tennessee state Representative Brenda Gilmore and other event organizers planned a Felony Friendly Job Fair in North Nashville on April 23, 2011, they expected a turnout of about 100 former prisoners looking for work. They grossly underestimated the interest among Nashville’s population of ex-offenders.
“We have probably seen about ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 18
A class-action lawsuit filed on May 4, 2011 is challenging the failure of the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) to provide assistance to prisoners who are deaf or hard of hearing. The complaint, filed in federal court, alleges violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Rehabilitation Act, Religious Land ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 18
According to an analysis of incidents involving assaults and disturbances at government-run and privately-managed prisons in Tennessee from January 2009 to June 2011, incident rates were consistently higher at the state’s three private prisons. Those were the findings released on October 18, 2011 by the Private Corrections Institute (PCI), a ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 20
In November 2010 the Center for Economic and Policy Research released a study titled “Ex-offenders and the Labor Market,” which found that a felony conviction or imprisonment significantly reduces the ability of ex-offenders to find jobs, costing the U.S. economy an estimated $57 to $65 billion annually in lost economic ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 22
In April 2011 the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio (ACLU) released an expansive report entitled Prisons for Profit: A Look at Prison Privatization, which draws strongly on the experiences of other states with heavily-privatized prison systems. The report concludes that privately-operated prisons result in little or no savings and ...
by Holly S. Cooper & Anel Carrasco
In negotiating plea bargains for immigrants, many defense lawyers forget to focus on the primary goal for their clients – staying in the United States. While no reliable data exists on how many immigrants are in state prisons, the federal government estimates that ...
A number of prisoners in Virginia have been held in segregation for more than a decade because they refuse to cut their hair or beards on religious grounds.
Since December 1999, the Virginia Department of Corrections’ grooming policy has required male prisoners to keep their hair cut above the shirt ...
A study has found that an intensive probation program in Hamilton County, Ohio is so unsuccessful that its participants are actually more likely to re-offend than those convicted of similar crimes who receive no supervision at all, according to the state’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC).
The program’s success ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 30
A shortage of forensic pathologists in Northern California and elsewhere in the nation has led to the growth of private for-profit forensics companies. Forensic Medical Group (FMG) is one of those companies. FMG, which employs five doctors, conducts all the autopsies for Colusa, Contra Costa, Sonoma, Sutter and Yolo counties, ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 32
The State Bar of Texas has filed a lawsuit against Lubbock attorney Kevin Glasheen, alleging that he grossly overcharged clients in violation of the Bar’s Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct.
Glasheen, who represents over a dozen exonerated former prisoners, charged them about $5 million in combined attorney fees. He gave ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 32
On November 17, 2011 the ACLU of Florida and the Florida Justice Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of Prison Legal News in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Named as defendants in the suit are Florida Dept. of Corrections (FDOC) Secretary Kenneth S. Tucker and ...
The Denver area coroner’s office has ruled the death of a prisoner at the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Facility (VCSDF) a homicide.
Marvin L. Booker, 56, a homeless preacher, died on July 9, 2010 after a struggle with guards at VCSDF. The incident occurred while Booker was being booked into the ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 34
Egyptian officials reported in January 2011 that thousands of prisoners clashed with guards and staged mass escapes during nationwide protests that were part of the revolutionary movement known as Arab Spring. The officials acknowledged that a number of prisoners were killed or wounded during the uprising.
Against a backdrop of ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 36
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued orders against the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) for violations of federal law concerning asbestos removal. The violations stem from a renovation in 2005-2006 at the Topeka Correctional Facility (TCF).
The EPA took two actions against the KDOC in March 2010. The ...
U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice M. Stewart has denied summary judgment to the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in a suit filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) seeking copies of contracts between the BOP and private prison companies for the detention of non-U.S. citizens convicted of federal crimes.
In ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 38
In January 2011, the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board called for a cease and desist order to prevent the City of Adelanto, California from establishing any new sewer connections. The board said that Adelanto’s water utility authority had created a significant health risk by exceeding the capacity of its ...
Drug courts in the U.S. are increasingly like the people they purportedly aim to help – indulging their pathological tendencies with enabling self-talk that ignores the harsh reality of their failings. So argues the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) in its March 2011 report, Drug Courts are Not the ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 40
A recent report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) focuses on the “dual loyalties” that medical professionals face when providing health care to detainees in the U.S. immigration system.
The March 28, 2011 report highlights the conflicts that arise when medical officials are torn between their duties to their patients ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 40
On March 31, 2011, a man who had been falsely convicted of burglary, rape and sexual abuse accepted a $1 million settlement after being exonerated by DNA evidence.
Donald Wayne Good filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights suit in federal court against the City of Irving, Texas and ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 42
A guard at a privately-run immigration detention facility in Texas has pleaded guilty to sexually molesting numerous female immigration detainees while they were being transported to the bus station or airport for release. The facility, the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, located near Austin, is operated by Corrections Corporation of ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 42
In February 2011 it was revealed that the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office in Nashville, Tennessee had recorded approximately 300 phone calls between jail prisoners and their lawyers, then gave the recordings to federal prosecutors.
The calls were recorded despite the unwritten policy of the Sheriff’s Office not to listen to ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 42
The Kentucky Board of Nursing has disciplined two nurses who were on duty when a prisoner died one day after he was booked into the Fayette County Jail. Prisoner Dean Ferguson, 54, died of a pulmonary embolism on July 10, 2010 after complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath. ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 44
Oregon is one of ten states in “financial peril,” according to a November 2009 report by The Pew Center on the States. Thanks in large part to the state’s criminal justice policies of the last 20 years, Oregon faces an expected $3.5 billion shortfall in the 2011-13 biennial state budget, ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 46
Following a Massachusetts Superior Court’s award of nominal damages and attorney fees in a prison conditions case, and with an appeal pending, the parties entered into a settlement agreement. The settlement resulted from a lawsuit that sought damages for “disgusting and unhealthy conditions” at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution-Cedar Junction (MCI-CJ). ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 46
A former Minnesota prison chaplain has settled a lawsuit against state officials after she lost her job for raising concerns about the constitutionality of the InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI) program.
Kristine Holmgren was employed by the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) as the religious coordinator at the Shakopee women’s prison ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 48
Provisions of Ohio’s Adam Walsh Act (AWA) that require the reclassification of sex offenders by the Ohio Attorney General violate the separation of powers doctrine, the Ohio Supreme Court decided on June 3, 2010.
In 2006, Congress passed the federal Adam Walsh Act. The federal AWA requires states to adopt ...
The Indiana Department of Corrections (DOC) must provide kosher meals to prisoners who require a kosher diet to properly exercise their religious beliefs, U.S. District Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson held on November 1, 2010.
Judge Magnus-Stinson’s decision was in response to a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of all current ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 48
Claiming there was “nothing to hide,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Steve Whitmore nevertheless defended the decision of the Sheriff’s Department not to comply with a court order authorizing an attorney to take photographs of his incarcerated client, who, according to the attorney, was so badly beaten by jail ...
Loaded on
Dec. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
December, 2011, page 50
Alabama: Evergreen police officer Sean Klaetsch was placed on paid leave on Sept. 8, 2011 due to “complaints of unprofessional and harassing conduct.” That conduct included Klaetsch allegedly using a Taser on a female prisoner while she was in a restraint chair at the local jail. The prisoner, Crystal Coleman, ...
