By Paul Wright
This is a case which challenged numerous conditions of confinement at the Oregon State Penitentiary's Disciplinary Segregation Unit (DSU), which is a control unit. The ruling does not bode well for prisoners seeking to question such conditions.
The sole plaintiff is Samuel Lemaire. The district court largely ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 2
Aprisoner at the Iowa Men's Reformatory received a major disciplinary infraction for "verbal abuse" as a result of comments included in a letter he had written to his brother. The prisoner, Rick Bressman, wrote: "yeah, their (sic) real assholes, my counselor is a dick head, the officers working here are ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 3
Three Pennsylvania state prisoners appealed the dismissal of their appeals from bankruptcy court after the district court held the appeal was untimely. Bankruptcy appeals must be filed within ten days, and in this case the prisoners gave their appeals to prison officials within the ten days, but they were not ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 3
Lobester Loggins is a Missouri State prisoner. In 1989 he sent his brother a letter. Pursuant to prison policy a prison mail clerk opened and read the letter, which stated in part that "there's a beetle eyed bitch back here who enjoys reading people's mail." The letter continued on in ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 3
In part of the continuing struggle to obtain minimum wages for their labor, five Wisconsin prisoners filed suit under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. The Wisconsin prison industries program, under the name of Badger State Industries (BSI) operates a vehicle and bicycle license ...
By Ed Mead
Case Goes to Trial Over $12.40 Pair of Glasses
Aprisoner at the Iowa State Penitentiary (ISP), Dean Benter, filed a suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging he was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the eighth amendment. Benter claimed his captors were deliberately ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 4
Raleigh Irby is a prisoner at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Chicago. He petitioned the district court for release under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (the habeas corpus statute) because he was not receiving adequate medical treatment for severe congenital disk disease.
The district court held that Irby's petition ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
by PLG
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 5
WA State DOC "Work Ethic" Program: Capitalist Training Camp, or Liberal Rehabilitation Scheme?
By P. L. G.
During the last session of the Washington State legislature, there was a bill passed mandating that DOC implement a "Work Ethic Program" by November 1, 1993. The McNeil Island Annex, a minimum security ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 6
Anthony Brown is a Maryland state prisoner. After telling prison medical staff he had already been vaccinated, he was given another tuberculosis inoculation and broke out in a rash. Brown filed suit under §<%0> 1983 claiming that the vaccination violated his eighth amendment rights. The district court granted Brown leave ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 6
Ronald Chandler is a Missouri state prisoner. He filed suit claiming that prison officials violated his constitutional rights by providing a dining room too small to accommodate all the prisoners in his housing unit at once; poorly supervising the noisy and chaotic dining room; not providing enough salt and pepper ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 7
This case involves a class action suit filed by Oklahoma death row prisoners and prisoners in the control unit of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. The case provides a revealing look at the mentality driving the construction of control units.
The OSP control unit is called H Unit. It was opened ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 7
Prisoner's Assault Claim Must Go To Trial
William Moore is a prisoner at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) in Lucasville. He filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming that his eighth amendment rights were violated when prison guards came to his cell, handcuffed him, and proceeded to savagely ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 7
James Sullivan is a Michigan state prisoner. He was infracted for having a urinalysis test that indicated marijuana use. At his disciplinary hearing he stated he had been using the legal pain killer and anti-inflammatory Ibuprofen, which was sold in the inmate store. He sought to introduce evidence showing Ibuprofen ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 8
Only One Appeal On Qualified Immunity
This case involves a taxpayer suing an IRS agent claiming her constitutional rights were violated when the agent garnished her wages and seized her house, even though he knew she owed no taxes. While this is not a prison case, the legal issue presented, ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 8
Classification Chief Liable For Attack
Israel Nelson was convicted in an Ohio court of assaulting his common law wife and was sent to a medium security prison. His wife contacted him and informed him that her brother, a major cocaine dealer, was plotting to have him attacked by associates at ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 9
Making Con Drink From Toilet States Claim
Apro se prisoner at the Indiana State Prison, Craig Thomas, filed a civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The complaint raised a number of issues, only one of which survived the state's motion for summary judgement. The surviving claim was an ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 9
The federal prisoner in this case, Noble Simpson, filed a pro se habeas corpus petition against the U.S. Parole Commission. Simpson's suit challenged, on ex post facto grounds, the Commission's application at his second parole hearing of it's guidelines which were not in effect at the time of his first ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 9
Visitor Cannot Withdraw Consent To Search Once Search Has Begun
This prison case comes to us via a suppression of evidence hearing in a federal drug prosecution.
Arthur Spriggs went to visit a prisoner at the Lorton Reformatory, a District of Columbia prison. Prior to entering the prison all visitors ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 9
This is not a prison case but it involves a net maker's suing a competitor for theft of trade secrets. In the course of the litigation various documents were submitted under seal and protective order to the court. That litigation was settled. A shareholder in Applied Extension Technologies (AET) filed ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 10
Rederick Cummings was accused of attempting to rape a prison employee. During the course of "investigating" the rape allegations prison officials beat Cummings several times. Cummings filed suit alleging that the beatings violated his eighth amendment rights. At trial a jury found two of the defendants liable and awarded him ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 10
Victor Sowell is a New York state prisoner. He was infracted for inciting a riot, assault and disobeying a direct order. He was transferred to a different prison and placed in segregation prior to his disciplinary hearing. At the hearing Sowell requested that the infracting guard be present, that a ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 11
Despite the increased use of prison as a criminal sanction, nearly every category of violent crime rose from 1981 to 1991. In the past decade, Michigan's legislature has passed many "tough on crime" laws and quadrupled the state's corrections budget, according to a study by the Michigan Council on Crime ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 11
La Patria Radical is a bi-lingual (English and Spanish) tabloid published by the MLN (Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional, a Puerto Rican independence party). Each issue provides information about the Puerto Rican independence movement, community activism, government repression of the movement and updates on the numerous Puerto Rican political prisoners and ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 12
The state of Washington has adopted legislation requiring prisoners convicted of sex offenses or violent crimes to submit to a blood draw in order to provide officials with DNA identification information. Joe Ryncarz filed a pro se 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action alleging the forcible extraction of his blood violated ...
Editorial Comments
By Ed Mead
Well, at long last here I am writing my very first editorial from the streets! Regular PLN readers will remember that some month ago I initiated a campaign to get myself free. For reasons I still don't quite understand, I am finally out here in ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 12
George Cowsen-El is a federal prisoner at Marion, Illinois. He filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) seeking disclosure of BOP program statement 5511.2, which deals with stand up counts. He also sought disclosure, under the Privacy Act (PA), of his own medical ...
America's inner cities are being militarized. And Operation Weed and Seed, initiated in 1991 by the Bush administration in order to subordinate social spending to the agenda of the Justice Department, lies at the heart of the assault.
Michael Zinzun of Los Angeles's Coalition Against Police Abuse puts it bluntly: ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 14
Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project who have just visited four Vermont Prisons announced today that they plan to extend and deepen their investigation into unconstitutional prison conditions there. Attorney Edward Koren, team member and veteran litigator in major prison conditions cases around the country, ranked ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
January, 1994, page 14
The Safer Society Program has recently produced and published a series of audio tapes made by ex-prisoners specifically for men confined in jails and prisons. Rape in prison is an important issue that has received all too little attention due to the stigmas attached to the subject. With virtually no ...
By Bill Dunne
The lockdown at the U.S. Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, is now a decade old. The magnitude of the decades in human experience is obvious in the marking of cultural epochs--the sixties, the fifties, the eighties. It even emerges in popular music as the definition of a long ...
