Since 1976, the Civil Rights Attorney Fees Award Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1988, has ensured that state officials would be forced to pay the attorney fees of the litigants who successfully sue state officials for violations of federal rights. This law has been especially important to prisoners for two reasons. ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 1
Prisoners in Arizona have been denied adequate means to communicate with lawyers, perform legal research, and otherwise receive legal assistance, according to a recent decision by United States District Judge Carl Muecke in Phoenix, AZ.
Ruling in Casey v. Lewis, a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of all Arizona ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 2
Two Missouri state prisoners wrote and telephoned US postal officials to complain that prison administrators were "stealing, holding, tampering with, censoring, delaying and destroying" their mail in violation of federal postal laws. The postal officials refused to investigate the prisoners' claims. The prisoners then filed suit against the officials claiming ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 2
Congress has approved legislation allowing the Federal Bureau of Prisons to collect "user fees" from federal inmates equal to the costs of a year's incarceration. The Justice Department, which sought the legislation, estimated that about 9 percent of the 30,000 new inmates who enter the prison system each year will ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 2
Four prisoners at the Iowa State Reformatory segregation unit were sent outdoors to a recreation area while prison guards searched their living unit for weapons. The temperature was sub-freezing with a significant wind chill factor. The prisoners requested not to go outside. They were placed outdoors with only coats even ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 2
Offenders sentenced under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are more likely to go to prison and to stay there longer than were offenders sentenced for crimes committed before the guidelines took effect in November, 1987,according to U.S. Justice Departments Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). BJS said that in 1990 about 74 ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 3
In October of 1992 former President Bush signed bill HR-2324 into law which prohibits the payment to incarcerated persons of witness fee's in federal court. The law amends 28 U.S.C. § 1821 and overrules the US Supreme Courts decision in Demarest v. Manspeaker, 498 US 184 (1991), which had held ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 3
Craig Northington is a Colorado state prisoner assigned to community placement. While going to his work site plainclothes prison officials surprised him, put guns to his head without identifying themselves as prison guards, threatened to kill him and verbally and physically assaulted him while returning him to the local jail. ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 3
Autry Clark is an Ohio state prisoner. He filed suit against Ocean Brand Tuna claiming he bought cans of cat food from the prison commissary that had been re-labelled as tuna fit for human consumption. Clark became ill after eating the tuna. He filed suit in federal court claiming the ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 3
Joseph Pena is a prisoner at the Washington State Penitentiary. He was subjected to a digital rectal search without probable cause and filed suit under § 1983. Prison officials sought dismissal of the complaint on grounds Pena had failed to state a claim and that they were entitled to qualified ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 4
This is a case that will only be of interest to prisoners in Washington state, as our system of issuing good time credits is probably the strangest in the nation. This case deals with a Washington state prisoner who filed a personal restraint petition seeking review of a decision of ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 4
Two HIV+ Mississippi state prisoners filed suit against Mississippi state officials challenging numerous aspects of the state DOC's policy regarding HIV+ prisoners. The policies they challenged include: placing HIV+ prisoners in administrative segregation and denying them all privileges; not providing adequate AIDS treatment (to include medication) and diagnosis; a lack ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 4
Willie Horne is a retarded New York state prisoner who was infracted, not provided with a counsel substitute at a disciplinary hearing, and was punished. Horne filed suit claiming that prison officials violated his due process rights by subjecting him to a disciplinary hearing without a counsel substitute when they ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 4
Tuberculosis may spread from state prisons and become Pennsylvania's number one health concern if officials fail to implement proper controls, a witness told a state Senate committee last November in Harrisburg.
ACLU lawyer Stephan Presser said the recent discovery that nearly one-quarter of the inmates at Graterford Prison in Philadelphia ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 5
In part of the continuing split among the circuits on this issue, some circuits have held exposing prisoners to Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) violates the eighth amendment, see: Hunt v. Reynolds, above. Other Circuits have held it does not. See: Wilson v. Lynaugh, 878 F.2d 846 (5th Cir. 1989). The ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 5
Ronald Guilmet is a Washington state prisoner at Walla Walla. Guilmet does not smoke and a smoker was placed in his cell. Five days later Guilmet complained to the unit sergeant that cigarette smoke bothered him. About five days after this Guilmet was assigned a non-smoking cellmate. Guilmet filed suit ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 5
Two non-smoking Tennessee prisoners suffering from various medical problems were forcibly celled with prisoners who smoked. They claim the Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) of their cellmates aggravated their existing medical conditions. They filed suit in district court under § 1983 claiming prison officials had violated their eighth amendment rights by ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 5
The Nov. 26, 1992, edition of the Seattle Times reports that the Vermont DOC has ended its ban on prisoner smoking. The Vermont DOC had banned smoking, in July 92, to counter indoor air pollution problems and avoid lawsuits by non smoking prisoners.
The reason given by prison officials for ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 6
Jerry Forbes is an Indiana state prisoner who refused to take a urine test because the prison did not publish its testing procedures. He was infracted and requested prison officials as witnesses at his hearing and they refused to appear. He was found guilty, lost good time credits and was ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 6
Dennis Wolfel and three other Ohio state prisoners, including longtime PLN supporter John Perotti, were infracted and disciplined for circulating a petition complaining of brutal prison conditions. The petition was going to be sent to Amnesty International, the international human rights group, to request an investigation of prison conditions in ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 6
Warren Bass is a New York state prisoner who filed suit under § 1983 after being denied a diet of meals prepared in accordance with his religious beliefs. The defendant prison officials moved for summary judgement on the basis of qualified immunity from money damages. The district court denied their ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 6
Prisoners from a privately-run jail in Louisville, Kentucky have been used as scabs in the three-month-old strike by UFCW Local 227 against Fischer Packing Company. The prisoners were brought into the plant after the strikers rejected the company's "best and final offer" by a margin of 402 to 2. Fischer ...
By Paul Wright
A judge in Maryland recently sentenced a university student to six months in jail after the student was discovered to have cheated on his Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), which is the test used for college admissions. The student cheated by paying another student to take the test ...
Why do you think Paul and I go through all the trouble to put out this paper each month? Why do our outside volunteers so consistently work to produce and mail every issue? It certainly isn't because we or our volunteers have nothing better to do with our time. The ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 8
Two Arizona state prisoners were found guilty of drug use at a disciplinary hearing and lost 2 years of good time credits, did 15 days in isolation, lost privileges, were moved to higher security levels, and placed on a more restrictive parole status. They filed suit under § 1983 claiming ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 8
Two former Louisiana corrections officials must pay $4,000 in fines for segregating inmates by race, a federal judge said. In his ruling October 27th in Baton rouge, a U.S. District judge lowered the judgment from $10,000 recommended by a federal magistrate earlier in the year.
Fined were former Department of ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 8
Jeffrey Rainey was a North Carolina pretrial detainee. He claimed that in the course of a dispute with a jail guard the guard used excessive force against him by slamming him into a wall three times, injuring his back. He filed suit under § 1983 and at trial a jury ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 9
According to Al Fair of Nov. 23, 1992, in December, 1991, the New York based Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit on behalf of nine families of Palestinians killed by tear gas in Israeli occupied Palestine. The suit, Abu Zeinah v. Federal Laboratories, was filed in U.S. District Court in ...
As you may know, the French prison system is one of the worst in Western Europe; its conditions and facilities of confinement are the same as those of bloody Turkey!
In the 1980's things only worsened. Each year there are more prisoners and they are always serving heavier sentences. The ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 10
Looking for someone to mail a gift for you? Thanks to a service called Mail-A-Gift, fathers who have never had the chance to select and independently send their child a birthday present can do so now, and husbands can send their wives gifts such as candy or flowers. Mail-A-Gift is ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 10
The Oregon DOC has introduced a bill into the Oregon Legislature that would allow the state to charge prisoners for their costs, which include transportation, room, board, clothing, security, medical and other living expenses. According to the DOC, the average cost of care for an Oregon prisoner is $47.85 per ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 10
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has announced its support for a vast study of the ways in which criminal offenders differ from law-abiding people, and what leads certain people into criminal behavior. Directors of the "Roots of Crime" project said it will be "the most sophisticated, broad-based, and ambitious ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 10
Every fifteen seconds a woman in the U.S. is beaten. One California state prison study found that 93 percent of women who had killed their mates had been battered by them. There are approximately 650 women in California state prisons for killing their abusers.
The California Coalition for Battered Women ...
By Ed Mead
The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has just come out with two more books containing figures on the nation's prison population. The first is a 32-page pamphlet entitled Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities-1990, and the second one is a 189-page book named Correctional Populations in ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 11
No Welcome For Princess Anne
Princess Anne of British royal family fame, did not receive a friendly welcome from some her less fortunate subjects when she paid a visit to Horfield Prison in Bristol.
Prisoners threw food and rubbish in a protest over conditions before the visit, and among the ...
By Paul Wright
We often hear prison officials, the various attorney generals, and the courts complain about what they call a "flood" of prisoner litigation. I, for one, became curious as to how many lawsuits constitute a "flood." I have been in several prisons over the last few years and ...
With Clinton's election many prisoners are optimistic that there will be some changes for the better after 12 years of jackboot politics by the Republicans. In past issues of PLN I've mentioned Clinton's despicable record on the death penalty. That record includes 4 executions, dozens of death warrants signed, never ...
Loaded on
March 15, 1993
published in Prison Legal News
March, 1993, page 12
On January 19, 1993, the state of Virginia executed Charles Stamper. Stamper had been confined to a wheelchair since his spinal cord was injured in a prison brawl. Stamper was denied permission to walk to the electric chair in leg braces and a walker. Instead, prison guards shuffled him into ...
Crossroad: A New Afrikan Captured Combatant Newsletter is a quarterly publication which specializes in coverage of political prisoners and prisoners of war in the U.S. from a New Afrikan perspective. Recent issues have included an excellent interview with Assata Shakur, peer advocacy in AIDS education in prison, control units, and ...
