“Exterminate all the brutes!”
– Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
“They beat the shit out of you,” said Mike James, hunched near the smeared plexiglass separating us. He was talking about the cell “extractions” he’d endured at the hands of the supermax-unit guards at the Maine State Prison.
“They push ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 8
by Paul Wright
As we move into the New Year we are striving to increase our circulation. We mail sample copies of PLN as well as information packs on an almost daily basis. But that is expensive and not as efficient as we would like. No one knows PLN better ...
A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reveals that physicians with the CIA’s Office of Medical Services (OMS) played an even greater role in facilitating the torture of detainees than was previously recognized.
As described in the study, “In 2003, partially in response to a ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 9
In June 2010, Melanie Dawn Williams, who had been arrested by officers after allegedly running a red light on her way to the St. Vincent’s Medical Center emergency room in Jacksonville, Florida when she was in premature labor, accepted a settlement in her lawsuit instead of going to trial.
Williams ...
by David M. Reutter
An Illinois federal district court has held that existing Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) procedures for placing prisoners at the Tamms Correctional Center (Tamms) are inadequate to protect the liberty interest of IDOC prisoners to avoid confinement at the supermax facility. To cure the due process ...
A new “green paper” released on July 19, 2010, entitled Operation Streamline: Drowning Justice and Draining Dollars along the Rio Grande, takes a look at the impact of Operation Streamline on the private prison industry.
Operation Streamline, initiated in 2005 in Del Rio and expanded to much of the Texas ...
by Kent Russell, Blaire Russell & Chandra Russell
This column provides “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 on habeas corpus under AEDPA, the 1996 habeas corpus law which now governs habeas ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 14
The California Court of Appeal has held that the State may be vicariously liable for the acts or omissions of its employees in failing to provide needed medical care for an infant living with its mother in a private, community-based correctional facility operating under a contract with the California Department ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 15
Thord “Catfish “ Dockray, 42, a blind Texas state prisoner with a history of mental illness, died on May 13, 2010 following a violent altercation with prison guards.
Dockray was housed alone in a cell in the medical wing of the Estelle Unit in Huntsville. According to prison officials he ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 16
On December 21, 2010, just days before recessing for the holidays, the U.S. Senate confirmed Stacia Hylton as director of the U.S. Marshals Service in spite of opposition by a coalition of human rights, citizens’ advocacy and criminal justice-related organizations that argued she had a conflict of interest based on ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 18
by Mark Wilson
In 2008, 1,295 prisoners – including 241 serving life sentences – bilked the federal government out of $9.1 million in fraudulent home buyer credits, according to a June 23, 2010 report by the Inspector General (IG) of the U.S. Treasury Department.
The home buyer credit program was ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 18
The Fifth Circuit court of appeals held that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (BPP) failed to comport with the due process requirements of Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972), when it revoked a parolee for a crime he had been acquitted ...
by Matt Clarke
According to a report released by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) in June 2010, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) performed illegal non-consensual human medical experiments on high-value terrorism detainees in connection with torturing those detainees. Also see article on p. 8.
The PHR report was released following ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 21
Retaliation for verbally complaining about a prison guard who hung a noose where prisoners could see it, the Seventh Circuit has held, may constitute an infringement of a prisoner’s First Amendment free speech rights.
Lester Dobbey, an Illinois state prisoner, filed suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 22
A settlement agreement was reached in June 2010 to close the notorious Unit 32 at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. The agreement provides for the dismissal of a lawsuit that challenged conditions at the supermax unit.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in collaboration with the Holland & Knight ...
Reviewed by Mumia Abu Jamal
Law books aren’t easy to review.
That’s because they are unlike other books, as they are really collections of what others—courts—have written, and are thus actually the recitations of others.
The Habeas Citebook is precisely that book that many prisoners are seeking. For lawyers, their ...
by David M. Reutter
On July 13, 2010, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of a former Florida prison guard for making a false entry in a report with the intent to impede a federal investigation.
Before the Court was the appeal of Wilton Joseph Fontenot, formerly ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 24
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a district court’s denial of qualified immunity for Michigan prison officials accused of violating a prisoner’s due process rights.
In April of 2001, David Pickelhaupt was given a physical plant maintenance job at the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) North ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 24
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment to Arizona jail officials related to a teenage detainee’s suicide. The court vacated the dismissal of plaintiff’s state law claims and remanded for reconsideration.
Seventeen-year-old Jasper Simmons was charged with molesting a 10-year-old girl and was ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 26
A New York Court of Claims has awarded $450,000 for injuries incurred as a result of a prison doctor negligently injecting a corticosteroid directly into a prisoner’s Achilles tendon.
Prior to his incarceration in 1988, New York state prisoner Kent Kruemer was a serious and experienced runner hoping to qualify ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 27
The State of Washington Division II Court of Appeals has held that the legislature violated the separation of powers by allowing the sheriff’s office to classify sex offenders to levels of supervision without providing guidance.
Before the Court was the appeal of Domingo Torres Ramos, Jr., who was challenging his ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 28
When Kenya was torn apart by bloody civil strife following contested national elections in December 2007, it was not apparent that the political chaos could lead to the reform of prisoners’ voting rights. Yet that is exactly what happened.
To end the violence, the two main political parties agreed to ...
by David M. Reutter
On August 20, 2010, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court’s order that found a warden and the secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) had “turned a blind eye” to a prisoner’s “mental health needs and the obvious danger that the ...
The Ninth Circuit has ruled that a prisoner threatened with retaliation for filing grievances may prevail on a claim of First Amendment retaliation even when the threat is non-specific and not carried out, and even if the prisoner does not succumb to the threat, so long as the threat would ...
by David M. Reutter
At least 21 Georgia judges have been disciplined by the state’s Judicial Qualifications Committee (JQC) or have resigned amid allegations of unethical conduct since April 2008. The high rate of action by the JQC has raised questions about corruption on the bench and the secrecy that ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 33
A report issued by the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as part of an audit to determine whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials are properly administering prison telephone systems found that changes must be made to bring ICE into full compliance with applicable ...
A report by Rutgers University released in January 2010 concluded that the New Jersey Department of Corrections could be doing more to help prisoners successfully reintegrate into society upon their release. The report was based on the results of a survey of 4,000 prisoners completed in August 2009, comprising about ...
by Matt Clarke
In the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), geriatric prisoners – those over 55 years old – comprise only 7.3% of TDCJ’s population. However, they account for almost one-third of the prison system’s medical expenses. Geriatric prisoners average $4,700 in annual health care costs compared to an ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 35
A federal jury has awarded $42,000 to a woman who was placed in a restraint chair for seven hours. On January 25, 2006, while incarcerated at the Scott County Jail in Scott County, Iowa, Lillian Slater had a painful flare-up of her Sickle Cell Anemia.
Rather than provide Slater with ...
The November 13, 2009 death of Adam Montoya, a prisoner at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Pekin, Illinois, resulted in an investigation by the FBI.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that “an autopsy concluded that the 36-year-old inmate suffered from no fewer than three serious illnesses – cancer, hepatitis, ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 36
In June 2010, the advocacy group Disability Rights Vermont (DRV) released a report faulting the staff of the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility (CRCF) in South Burlington, Vermont in connection with the death of a disabled prisoner.
Michael Crosby, 49, was arrested after he turned himself in on charges of selling ...
by Matt Clarke
Public officials in Cleveland, Ohio have noticed that some registered sex offenders are dropping out of sight. When the officials attempted to confirm the offenders’ registered addresses, they found they didn’t live there. The reason for this development is Ohio’s sex offender residency restrictions, which prohibit registered ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 38
A long-running lawsuit against the City of Long Beach, California for Thomas Goldstein’s wrongful murder conviction was settled in June 2010 for $7.95 million.
After serving 24 years in prison following his 1980 conviction, Goldstein was finally released based on new evidence that the police had coached the lone eyewitness ...
For decades, prison officials across the U.S. have lined their pockets with multi-million dollar kickbacks from telephone companies that are awarded lucrative prisoner phone service contracts. In doing so, they unwittingly created an “epidemic” that they are now desperately scrambling – and largely failing – to control. Namely, the excessive ...
by David M. Reutter
An attorney representing a prisoner who suffered a near-fatal attack by another prisoner at Pennsylvania’s Lackawanna County Prison (LCP) has claimed that the incident demonstrates a pattern of mistreatment by staff at the facility.
Prisoner Nicholas Pinto, 29, pleaded guilty to child pornography in federal court ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 42
A federal grand jury has issued a two-count indictment against two businessmen implicated in a kickback scheme that involved prison canteen profits and former top-ranking officials with the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC). PLN previously reported events related to this story. [See: PLN, Dec. 2006, pp.1, 4].
The indictment, issued ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 42
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a district court’s decision granting summary judgment to officers and officials with the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) after they forcibly shaved a prisoner’s head in contravention of his religious beliefs. The prisoner, Kevin Smith, a/k/a Bar-None Royal Blackness, was being housed ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 43
The Ohio Department of Youth Services (ODYS) said in a May 2010 report that it had found substantial evidence to validate numerous harassment charges against Thomas Teague, an 11-year ODYS employee, which justified his immediate firing.
According to an Associated Press article, female employees at the Circleville Juvenile Correctional Facility, ...
“I murdered that man cold-bloodedly. I planned it, and I’m gonna do it again,” said Virginia state prisoner Robert Gleason, Jr., 40, after murdering his cellmate, Harvey Gray Watson, Jr. “Someone needs to stop it. The only way to stop me is to put me on death row.”
Watson was ...
Review by Lewis Wallace
Parts of the story are familiar. In late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Floodwaters broke the levees in New Orleans and the city was devastated—first by floods, then by a shamefully underwhelming response on the part of the federal, state, and local governments. ...
On February 23, 2009, a federal jury returned a $240,001 verdict in favor of a man who was violently beaten by a guard at the Suffolk County House of Correction (SCHC).
Rodney Chaney ended up at the SCHC in August of 1998 after he was sentenced to 30 days in ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 46
The City of New York will pay $9.9 million to a man who was wrongfully accused, arrested, convicted and imprisoned as the result of actions by disgraced former New York City police detective Louis J. Eppolito, who is now serving a life sentence plus 100 years for mob-related activities.
In ...
A study by the Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit legal organization based in Montgomery, Alabama, has found widespread discrimination in jury selection in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. The discriminatory practices appear to be most prevalent in serious criminal cases, including capital ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 16, 2010, New York City agreed to settle a long-standing class-action lawsuit challenging the strip search policy used in the city’s jails. The settlement was for over $33 million, which included an estimated $3 million in attorney fees.
The suit originated as a class-action civil ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 48
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a prisoner stated sufficient facts to defeat dismissal of his claim alleging a prison doctor was deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs. However, the appellate court affirmed judgment in favor of three other doctors named as defendants in the suit. ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 49
The Supreme Court of Texas has held that a prisoner who submits a hand-typed copy of the prison grievance decision he received adequately meets the requirements of Chapter 14, Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code (TCPRC).
Michael Lou Garrett, a Texas state prisoner, filed a prison-related lawsuit in state district ...
Loaded on
Feb. 15, 2011
published in Prison Legal News
February, 2011, page 50
California: Over 226,000 pounds of hamburger meat was recalled from prisons in California and Oregon due to concerns that it was spoiled. The meat, shipped in 20-pound boxes from One Great Burger in Elizabeth, New Jersey, had been flagged by the U.S. Department of Agriculture but was still shipped to ...
