by David C. Fathi
On May 19, 1997, the United States Supreme Court decided Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 117 S.Ct. 1584 (1997). Although the Court reversed a favorable decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, it also reaffirmed the ability of prisoners to challenge unfair ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 3
Award-winning poet Martin Espada was commissioned by National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" to compose a poem as part of the radio network's April observance of National Poetry Month. NPR suggested a poem focusing on a news story from one of the cities Espada was visiting during a reading tour. ...
Prison population growth is an oft-cited statistic. Since most PLN readers are either imprisoned or otherwise closely involved with the U.S. "corrections" industry, it is easy for them to readily appreciate the concrete (and steel) meaning of prison population stats. Here is a familiar one: according to the Bureau of ...
Slavery is being practiced by the system under the color of law ... Slavery 400 years ago, slavery today; it's the same thing, but with a new name. They're making millions and millions of dollars enslaving Blacks, poor whites, and others - people who don't even know they're being railroaded. ...
Society reflects itself in the microcosm of prison. From a class-based, economically driven, racially motivated construct devolves life as a series of Chinese boxes -- a set of boxes decreasing in size so that each box fits inside the next larger one. I am in the smallest box.
I am ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 9
A van carrying prisoners burst into flames alongside a Tennessee interstate highway, killing all six prisoners shackled inside a wire mesh cage in the back of the van.
The prisoners were being transported in a van operated by Federal Extradition Agency, a private Memphis-based company that transports prisoners. The driver ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 9
The court of appeals for the eighth circuit held that a prison pay policy requiring prisoners to buy hygiene items and litigation supplies may violate prisoners right of access to the courts. Three Iowa state prisoners in administrative segregation (ad seg) challenged a prison policy that provides them with $7.70 ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 10
The court of appeals for the sixth circuit held that 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), which requires prisoners to exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit in federal court do not apply to cases pending on April 24, 1996, when the PLRA was signed into law, creating the exhaustion requirement. This case ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 10
After a federal district court in Michigan found the Michigan DOC guilty of contempt for not complying with prior judicial orders on the prisoners' court access and educational opportunities, see: Glover v. Johnson, 934 F. Supp. 1360 (ED MI 1996), the defendants moved to immediately terminate the consent decree under ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 10
The tenth and eleventh circuit courts of appeals held that the PLRA's filing fee requirements for indigent prisoners do not apply to habeas corpus petitions. The five other circuits to consider this question have reached the same result. Thus, indigent prisoners need not pay the filing fee when filing a ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 10
The court of appeals for the tenth circuit held that the PLRA's filing fee requirements apply when a prisoner litigant seeks a writ of mandamus in an ongoing civil suit. The court did not discuss whether this applied to writs of mandamus in criminal or habeas proceedings. The court also ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 10
A federal district court in Indiana heard a motion by Lake County officials to dissolve a consent decree governing jail conditions. The motion sought immediate termination of the decree pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3626(b)(2) and (3). The court gave an extensive discussion to the history of the PLRA and ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 10
The court of appeals for the ninth circuit held that 18 U.S.C. § 3626(f)(4), the portion of the PLRA which limits the hourly rates paid to special masters appointed to oversee court orders in prison litigation to $75.00 an hour paid for by the federal judiciary, does not apply retroactively ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 11
The court of appeals for the sixth circuit rejected the first extensive constitutional challenge made to the In Forma Pauperis (IFP) provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). The PLRA changes to 28 U.S.C. § 1915, the IFP statute, were detailed in the July, 1996, issue of PLN and ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 11
The court of appeals for the fifth circuit held that the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) does not apply to immigration detainees. Anthony Ojo was convicted of a drug offense, sentenced to five years in prison and after completing that sentence the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began deportation proceedings ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 11
A federal district court in New York held that 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e), a section of the PLRA which requires prisoners to sustain physical injury before they can seek money damages, is not retroactive to claims arising before the PLRA's April 26, 1996, enactment. The court also held prison officials ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 12
A 15-year study of 1,300 sex offenders who were arrested in 1973, conducted by the California Dept. of Justice, found that 19.7 percent were re-arrested for a subsequent sex-offense. That figure may seem low, so in a dazzling example of statistical hocus-pocus, the study concluded that "sex offenders were five ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 12
A federal district court in New York held that prison officials were not entitled to qualified immunity for exposing prisoners to Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS), also known as second hand smoke, and scheduled a trial to determine prison officials' liability. Several New York state prisoners at Sing Sing filed suit ...
On November 8, 1996, Puerto Rican prisoner of war Oscar Lopez Rivera was transferred from ADX Florence to USP Marion after completing the 36-month "step program" at ADX in just 23 months. He received no disciplinary infractions while at ADX and was among the control unit's first "graduates." Lopez Rivera ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 14
In July, 1996, John Allen Lamb, 33, hijacked a prison truck at knife point and attempted to ram the truck through security fencing at the Washington State Penitentiary (WSP) at Walla Walla [later reported in PLN's News In Brief]. The unsuccessful escape attempt earned Lamb an extended stay in the ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 14
The Colorado court of appeals held that state prison disciplinary codes apply to private prisons and are subject to judicial review. Patrick Murphy, a Colorado state prisoner, was placed in the Bent County Correctional Facility (BCCF), a privately owned and operated prison. Murphy was infracted for possession of heroin and ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 15
On January 27, 1997, a guard at the French Robertson Unit in Abilene, TX, showed up to search Gary Lee Crenshaw's cell. Crenshaw, 31, serving a 45-year sentence for possession with intent to deliver cocaine, returned from the shower and reportedly "became irate" when he saw his cell being tossed. ...
Review by Daniel Burton-Rose
This work by Ronald Fernandez provides a history of Puerto Rico's efforts to free itself from the imperial rule of the United States, from the time it was "won" from the Spanish in 1898 to the present state of affairs. It concentrates on the four generations ...
Review by Daniel Burton-Rose
This work, edited by S.E. Anderson and Tony Medina, is a powerful compilation of graphic art, prose, and poetry inspired by political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal's struggle for freedom from PA's death row, the 1985 bombing of the radical MOVE organization by the city of Philadelphia, and ...
Review by Mark Cook
Mumia Abu Jamal's Death Blossoms walks the reader through a hallway of mirrors reflecting the thoughts of a prisoner of conscience contending with the oppressive diversion of a death sentence. Death Blossoms evades the State's attempt to silence him. In an effort to silence him the ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 17
A former U.S. Congressman and his organization are offering a $10,000 reward in the death of Kenneth Michael Trentadue. Congressman George Hansen says the U.S. Citizens Human Rights Commission is offering the money for the identification, indictment and conviction of the people responsible for Trentadue's death.
One fact is not ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 18
The court of appeals for the fifth circuit held that a district court erred in not allowing two pro se prisoner litigants to be present when their case went to a jury trial. The court also found error in the manner in which the trial was conducted. [Editors' Note: Anyone ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 18
The court of appeals for the tenth circuit held that a prisoner's retaliation claim and claim that he had been denied hygiene items required a trial. The court affirmed dismissal of claims regarding inadequate law library access and his placement in administrative segregation (ad seg). Donald Penrod, a Colorado state ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 19
In January, 1997, a settlement was filed in federal court in the three-year-old class action based on injuries stemming from the 1993 Easter Day uprising and 11-day siege at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) at Lucasville, OH. The settlement establishes a $4.1 million fund to pay prisoner damage claims, ...
In India there are 85 central prisons, 252 district prisons, 14 women's prisons, and about 547 sub-jails. The exact number of prisoners in the country is not known. At the end of 1993, according to one estimate, there were about 200,000 prisoners throughout India. Of that number, about 137,838 (or ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 21
CA: On May 8, 1997, 11 year Sacramento County deputy district attorney Pete Harned was charged in federal court with 19 counts of receiving, transporting and possessing child pornography over the Internet. This included felony receipt of a CD Rom titled "The Boy Lovers." A search of his home revealed ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1997
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1997, page 22
A federal district court in California held that courts may issue writs of habeas corpus ad testificandum to ensure prisoner witnesses are produced to testify in court on behalf of a prisoner plaintiff. The court also held that the cost of transporting and producing prisoner witnesses was properly borne by ...
