Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 1
The Proposed Prison in Florence, CO: A "New and Improved" Marion
The United States Penitentiary at Marion, located in Southern Illinois, opened in 1963 to replace Alcatraz, which closed that same year. Marion is the most maximum security prison in the country, the only one with a "level 6" security ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 2
Prisoners, ex prisoners, friends and family members of prisoners and community activists in New Jersey have begun forming a Prisoner Support Network. So far two meetings have been held to discuss ways to end various forms of repression and discrimination in the New Jersey DOC (such as harsh isolation conditions ...
By John Perotti
Three days before former Ohio Governor Dick Celeste left office he commuted the death sentences of Donald Maur, Leonard Jenkins, Willie Jester, Crazy Horse Seiber, Debra Brown, Rose Grant and Elizabeth Green to life in prison. Celeste also commuted the prison sentences of Saram Bellinger and Ralph ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 2
According to an investigation by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, the Office of National Drug Control Policy which is supposed to lead the nations war on drugs has a higher percentage of political patronage jobs than any other government agency.
The agency has 109 employees and ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 3
A human rights group confirmed on April 1, 1992, that the Israelis have allowed security services to routinely practice torture against Palestinian prisoners. The group, called the "Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Arab Territories" known as B'tselem, said violence and ill treatment have become an expected part ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 3
Juan Manuel Perez Hernandez is a 40 year old telecommunications engineer serving a 30 year sentence for his militancy in GRAPO (Anti Fascist Resistance Group, First of October, a communist organization). He is married and has a daughter. He has been in prison since October of 1979.
As reported in ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 3
Behind The Walls: Prison Radio Show To Start
To bring prison news to millions of potential listeners every week, MIM (Maoist International Movement) is starting a weekly radio program called Behind the Walls . The program will include some of the same material they now use in their newspaper, but ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 4
Exhaustion of State Remedies Not Required to Challenge Parole Board Procedures in Federal Court
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit has held that a prisoner who is dissatisfied with the procedures used to consider his or her application for parole is not required to exhaust available state ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 4
Washington, D.C., Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly recently unveiled a plan to combat AIDS that includes distributing condoms to the city's inmates. The plan, which was scheduled to take effect in July, will combine condom distribution with educational AIDS programming. A voluntary course for inmates is being replaced by six mandatory ...
Editorial Comments
By Ed Mead
First of all, readers should have noticed that we printed fourteen pages of the PLN last month, four more than our usual number. The reason for this bonus was due to an unexpected increase in contributions from prisoners and family members. I have no idea ...
By Paul Wright
Recently the media has been awash in allegations by Gennifer Flowers, a nightclub singer, that she had carried on a 12 year love affair with Democratic Party presidential candidate Bill Clinton. Clinton and his wife have both appeared on TV and numerous press conferences to deny Flowers' ...
During the next several months the mass media will be pulling the wool over the eyes of working people in America. They will be doing this by using Gulf War type saturation coverage of the elections. In many ways it is all part of the same ongoing campaign: to spread ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 6
Virginia state prisoners filed suit challenging Virginia legislation which directs the DOC to take and store blood from prisoners for Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis and storage. (DNA is the basic component of living organisms, every human has a DNA blueprint which contains individual characteristics and is different for everyone except ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 6
John Dell-Orfano was arrested and held in administrative segregation (ad seg) in the Suffolk County jail in New York. Before being placed in ad seg he did not receive any type of hearing, notice or opportunity to dispute the placement. He filed suit in US District Court claiming violation of ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 6
Twenty-three percent of New York's prisoners and six percent of the prison employees have tested positive for tuberculosis infection, according to the most thorough study to date.
Thomas A. Coughlin, the Commissioner of Correctional Services, released the data. The tests included nearly all prison personnel and prisoners. Of the 55,000 ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 6
Marshal Jackson, an Indiana state prisoner filed suit on the subhuman prison conditions he was subjected to in the Indiana penal system. He claimed he was forced to live with filth, inadequate plumbing, roaches, rodents, poor lighting, inadequate heating, rusted out toilets, drinking water with small black worms in it, ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 7
A recent William Raspberry article on alternatives to imprisonment pointed out the folly of continuing to waste tax dollars on a system (imprisonment) that is ineffective, does not deter crime, and could inadvertently provide impetus to a problem that is already epidemic.
Raspberry's position is that increased imprisonment will inevitably ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 7
Rogaciano Mendoza was a prisoner at the Washington State Penitentiary (WSP) at Walla Walla in 1989 when prison officials discovered a broken balloon containing a white substance in the visiting room bathroom being used by Mendozas 6 children. Mendoza was placed in a dry cell under a "feces watch." He ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 7
Three Oklahoma state prisoners filed suit challenging the Oklahoma DOC's policy of banning any facial hair or hair longer than 3 inches in length. The prisoners claimed their religious beliefs forbid the cutting of their hair. In two cases requests for preliminary injunctions were denied by separate district courts and ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 1992
published in Prison Legal News
September, 1992, page 8
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has announced that court appointed lawyers, investigators, psychologists and other experts used by the defense will not be paid after June 17, 1992, until the new fiscal year begins on October 1, 1992, because the government "ran out of money" to pay these ...
On May 5, 1992, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori staged a coup with backing from the Peruvian military which suspended that countries parliament, constitution, writ of habeas corpus and other legal provisions. The reasons he gave for the coup were that he needed greater freedom to implement the economic reforms demanded ...
