by Alex Friedmann1

It’s an awful thing, solitary. It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.

— U.S. Senator John McCain, on his treatment as a P.O.W.2

On June 19, 2012, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, ...

Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins is a key cosponsor of legislation that, among other provisions, would outlaw psychologically damaging solitary confinement for more than 500 chimpanzees caged for research in federally supported laboratories. In July 2012 the bill bipartisanly passed the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee on its way ...

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Plata v. Brown, mandating that California take immediate steps to reduce prison overcrowding, state officials have proposed innovative ideas to help accomplish that goal.

One such idea, put forth by state Senator Carol Liu, was subsequently passed by the California ...

Over the past 22 years Prison Legal News has been represented by dozens of lawyers around the country in a variety of cases, mostly dealing with censorship and public records requests. We have met many if not most of our attorneys because they subscribed to PLN, based on their interest ...

In October 2011, the National Law Journal reported that Jay Bybee, a conservative federal judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, had accepted $3.4 million in legal and consulting help from 2007 to 2010 as he defended himself against allegations that he violated ethics rules when, as head of ...

Ed. Note: In April 2011, Prison Legal News published a comprehensive cover story on the prison telephone industry based on two years of research into prison phone contracts, rates and kickbacks nationwide. This article provides a summary and update of issues related to the prison phone industry, including the Wright ...

In a case brought under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (CAFRA), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held on April 26, 2011 that “attorneys fees awarded under CAFRA are payable to the claimant, not the attorney,” but left the total amount of the fees to be decided by the ...

In 2005, Louisiana prison officials instituted a statewide ban on The Final Call, a newspaper published by the Nation of Islam. The ban was based solely on the content of a statement of beliefs called “The Muslim Program,” located on the last page of each issue of the paper. However, ...

On December 1, 2011, a New York Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit that sought a judicial declaration that a state statute requiring prisoners to be counted for reapportionment purposes in their last known residence prior to their incarceration, rather than in their currently assigned prison, violated the state’s constitution.

The ...

Texas served its final last meal to condemned prisoner Lawrence Russell Brewer, who, on September 21, 2011, was executed for the infamous racially-motivated 1998 dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. Brewer requested an extensive last meal and then didn’t eat any of it, which prompted state Senator John Whitmire, chairman ...

by Matt Clarke

In 2008, then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo heaped lavish praise on Alisha Smith, a prosecutor in Manhattan who helped secure a $5 billion settlement in a securities fraud case involving Bank of America and other financial firms. The demurely-dressed Assistant State Attorney General spent her workdays ...

by David M. Reutter

A report by the John Howard Association of Illinois (JHA) found that overcrowding and understaffing at the Menard Correctional Center (Menard) has resulted in an “alarming” increase in staff and prisoner assaults.

Opened in 1878, Menard is the second-oldest prison in Illinois. When JHA visited the ...

As the late business historian Alfred Chandler, Jr. once said, the visible hand of the corporation has been of far greater importance to capitalism than has Adam Smith’s so-called invisible hand of the market.

Although modern forms of capitalism are justified, and often sanitized, by rhetorical appeals to competition, competition ...

Widespread fighting among black and Hispanic California prisoners at the privately-operated North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre, Oklahoma last year left dozens of prisoners injured.

The disturbance began shortly before noon on October 11, 2011 and was described by some news reports as a riot and by others as a ...

The Division One Court of Appeals for the State of Washington held on August 15, 2011 that where an appellate court “merely modifies the trial court award and the only action necessary in the trial court is compliance with the mandate,” post-judgment interest retroactive to the date of the original ...

On September 18, 2012 the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), the parent organization of Prison Legal News, released data indicating that levels of violence in Tennessee state prisons had increased approximately 20 percent since Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) Commissioner Derrick D. Schofield was appointed by Governor Bill Haslam in ...

by David M. Reutter

One of the most insidious businesses to grow out of the prison industrial complex revolves around mug shots. Natural curiosity compels many people to view jail booking photos taken by law enforcement agencies when someone is arrested, which are usually considered public records. Profiteers are now ...

Book review by John E. Dannenberg

Advanced Criminal Procedure in a Nutshell is an informative book that covers procedural aspects of a criminal case after an investigation by the police has resulted in a decision to prosecute. A less accurate but more colorful title would be “Criminal Procedure from Bail ...

A federal district court in Jacksonville has sentenced two men to short prison terms after they pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to paying kickbacks to former Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) Secretary James V. Crosby, Jr. and former FDOC regional director Allen Wayne Clark.

Over a two-year period, Edward ...

A federal judge’s treatment of prisoner habeas petitions gives new meaning to the old adage that justice delayed is justice denied. U.S. District Court Judge Percy Anderson, who was named to the federal judiciary in 2002 by President George W. Bush, has established a track record of allowing potentially meritorious ...

From August to November 2011, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) closed all but one of its community correctional facilities (CCFs).

In the past, the CDCR used CCFs to house low-level (minimum and medium security) prisoners in a dormitory-style environment at a cost-effective average daily rate of just ...

by Matt Clarke

The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) has challenged the findings of a state audit of the prisoner health care services it provides. The challenged audit reported that UTMB improperly charged the state for about $40 million in prison medical-related costs while reporting a $95.1 ...

Tasked with cutting $28 million from its massive $1.36 billion budget, Oregon prison officials had to look under every couch cushion for loose change. That means they once again turned their focus to prisoners and their loved ones, who present an easy and convenient target for generating additional revenue.

Consequently, ...

A Florida prisoner picked the wrong state when he fled from a private transport van and ran into a 310-acre corn field. “This is unique in the sense that, God bless North Dakota, we bring everybody together to solve the problem and we put guys up on combines,” said Cass ...

A New Hampshire Superior Court has invalidated a local ordinance that prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of a school, day care center, playground, athletic field, public beach or ski area, finding that it violated the Equal Protection clause of the New Hampshire Constitution.

In May 2007 the ...

by Matt Clarke

A succession of laws, cumulating in the most generous compensation package for wrongly convicted prisoners in the nation, has left Texas exonerees stuck at different levels of compensation depending on when they were proven innocent. Consequently, some earlier exonerees now claim they should receive compensation at the ...

On November 7, 2011, former Buncombe County, North Carolina Sheriff Bobby Lee Medford’s conviction on federal bribery and conspiracy charges was upheld by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision highlighted a scheme in which Medford and his co-conspirators misused their office to illegally profit from the regulation of ...

by Derek Gilna and Brandon Sample

Former Delaware state prisoner Michelle Bloothoofd has settled a federal lawsuit filed against the Delaware Department of Correction (DOC), the Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution (BWCI), Warden Patrick Ryan, guard Anthony Antonio and other prison officials, after she was sexually assaulted by Antonio on October ...

Book review by John E. Dannenberg

Loewy, a law professor, warns his students not to substitute reading this book for doing the hard work of mastering course material in their criminal law classes. Yet he admits that Criminal Law in a Nutshell constitutes the “succinct exposition of substantive criminal law” ...

On November 7, 2011 in Puerto Rico, eight prisoners died in a transport van trapped in rising floodwaters. The van contained two guards and ten shackled prisoners, all of whom were pre-trial detainees; most had been unable to afford bail and were being transported to a detention center in Arecibo. ...

“Youth who are held in adult jail[s] are at significantly increased risk of experiencing violence, committing suicide, and they’re actually at much higher risk of recidivating as well,” stated David Rogers, executive director of the Partnership for Safety and Justice (PSJ), based in Portland, Oregon. Thus, Rogers and PSJ have ...

An Oregon state prisoner was shot by a tower guard on the recreation yard at the Snake River Correctional Institution (SRCI) last year, after he ignored orders to stop fighting. That incident followed an unreported prisoner murder on the same yard three months earlier.

On August 17, 2011, prisoner Brian ...

Alabama: On June 13, 2012, two state prisoners picking up trash on an outside road crew were hit by a vehicle on Interstate 10 near Loxley. One, Kenric Turner, was killed; the other, Kelvin Dejan Jordan, was transported by helicopter to the University of South Alabama Medical Center. The Department ...