Idaho Prisoner Wins $602,000 Settlement against Corizon
by Derek Gilna
An Idaho state prisoner, William A. Bown, obtained a $602,782.50 settlement from Corizon Health in July 2014 for damages resulting from deliberately indifferent medical care arising from a heart attack he suffered at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.
Although Bown ...
Report Finds Two Percent of Counties Produce Majority of Death Penalty Cases
by Derek Gilna
A report issued by Death Penalty Information Center claims that only 2% of all U.S. counties are responsible for a majority of death penalty cases. This comes after the death penalty has come in for increasing criticism from many previous supporters who now feel the process is unjust.
According to the report, “[o]nly 2% of the counties are responsible for the majority of today’s death row population and recent death sentences...[A]ll of the state executions since the death penalty was reinstated stem from cases in just 15% of the counties in the U.S. All of the 3,125 [prisoners] on death row as of January 1, 2013 came from just 20% of the counties.”
The report points out that every decision to seek the death penalty is made by a single county prosecutor, who is generally an elected official, but the process he controls affects the budget of his entire state in which he is located, and in some cases, even the rest of the nation. In this era of tight budgets on all levels of government, the financial burdens of death penalty cases have received ...
Female Vermont Guard Receives Only Misdemeanor for Illegal Sex with Male Prisoner
by Derek Gilna
Prisoners’ rights cynics have often noted that both state and federal correctional officers are rarely disciplined or severely punished when their transgressions cannot be ignored. Recent events in Vermont, the last state to outlaw sex between prison guards and prisoners, seem to prove cynics rights.
After an investigation, female Southeast State Correctional Facility guard Leanne Salls finally admitted entering into a consensual sexual relationship with James Ingerson, while he was confined for burglary, resulting in her giving birth to the prisoner’s child. The Vermont guard was only charged with a misdemeanor, though she was technically guilty of a felony sex crime that carries a five-year maximum prison sentence.
That put the Windsor County prosecutor in a tough spot, forcing him to confront the fact that one of their own had violated a law initially designed to protect female prisoners from the unwanted advances of male prison guards. However, in an instance of rare prosecutorial indulgence with a clearly-guilty offender, the felony charge was reduced to a charge of “prohibited acts,” which did not require the female guard from having to register as a sex offender. ...
Urban Institute Report Backs Sweeping Reform of Federal Incarceration
by Derek Gilna
A new report published by the non-partisan Urban Institute calls for “sweeping reform” of the overcrowded and costly federal prison system. The document combines previously-reported data regarding prison overcrowding and skyrocketing prison budgets to support its premise that both “front-end” and “back-end” reforms are necessary to restore the federal justice system.
The report has its supporters on Capitol Hill; among them Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, chairman of the Senate Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee, the committee where most bills concerning prison reform are referred after they are proposed by lawmakers in the Senate. As usual, the Senator focused on the financial burden to the rest of the federal justice system, rather than the human costs of mass incarceration, but it’s a start. Whitehouse stated:
“Sky-high prison costs are a major burden on our federal budget and threaten other law-enforcement priorities. This new report…raises a number of important questions and will be a helpful resource as the Senate considers legislation to reduce prison costs while improving public safety.”
Congressman Frank Wolf, chairman of the House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee, agreed:
“States across the country have adopted reforms that have reduced recidivism and ...
Class Action Settlement to Reform Illinois’ Juvenile Justice Revocation Process
by Derek Gilna
A federal civil rights lawsuit alleged that the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) and the Illinois Prisoner Review Board (PRB) conducted “kangaroo court” proceedings for unrepresented defendants in juvenile parole revocation hearings. These hearings, termed a “sham” by the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center and the Uptown People’s Law Center, affected approximately 1,000 young people each year. The two groups filed the civil rights lawsuit that was later became a class action.
According to Alexa Van Brunt, Clinical Assistant Professor of Law and attorney for the MacArthur Justice Center:
“For too many years, children on parole have been removed from their homes, families, and communities, and held in prisons without any real opportunity to challenge their imprisonment...Without a lawyer by their side, they are subject to assembly line justice-churned through a system they don’t understand and re-imprisoned unnecessarily.”
A proposed consent decree enumerated the provisions of the settlement with the state: (1) within one day of being imprisoned for an alleged violation of parole, juvenile defendants must be given written notice of the charges and an explanation of the parole revocation process; (2) juveniles under ...
Guard Admits Guilt, but Lawsuit Dismissed against Jail Supervisors
by Derek Gilna
A civil rights complaint filed against officials at the Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset, Maine was dismissed by a federal court, even after a male guard admitted to improperly touching a female prisoner. The guard, Brian Bossie, a probationary employee who no longer works at the facility, pleaded guilty in April 2012 to sexually assaulting former prisoner Amanda Hayes.
Following Bossie’s plea, a charge of unlawful sexual touching was dropped and the assault charge was later dismissed as part of a deferred prosecution.
Hayes, 34, filed suit in 2013 under 28 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Bossie’s supervisors at the jail, Col. Mark Westrum and Lt. Richard Thompson, were aware of his unwanted advances towards Hayes and other female prisoners. According to the complaint, “Throughout the month of September 2011, Officer Bossie made several sexual comments and remarks to Ms. Hayes, ... requested that Ms. Hayes be naked when he did cell checks, ... [and these] sexual comments and remarks to Ms. Hayes were unwelcomed and unprovoked by Ms. Hayes and frightened her.”
The lawsuit, which sought damages against the jail and its supervisory staff, was originally ...
Report on Prosecutorial Coercion in Obtaining Drug Pleas
by Derek Gilna
A report by Human Rights Watch highlighted what criminal law experts have known for years – that federal prosecutors have almost unlimited power in drug cases to coerce guilty pleas, and they are not afraid to use it. The report mentions several examples where first-time drug offenders resisted an initial plea bargain, and were shortly thereafter hit with superceding indictments seeking long mandatory minimum sentences.
When Congress passed laws requiring the application of mandatory minimum sentencing, the clear intent was for the most severe penalties to be reserved for drug “kingpins,” not couriers or street-corner peddlers. Instead, prosecutors soon learned that most drug prosecutions were “easy wins,” while judges were constrained by the language of the statutes to sentence defendants to long prison terms. Power shifted from the judicial branch to the executive branch, and prosecutors were only restrained by their consciences. In other words, some were not restrained at all.
According to the report, “prosecutors often charge or threaten to charge mandatory minimums not because they result in appropriate punishment, even in the view of the prosecutor, but to pressure defendants to plead guilty and to punish them ...
New Mexico County Jail Pays $1.5 Million to Mentally Ill Prisoner
by Derek Gilna
In February 2014, Valencia County, New Mexico agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle a federal civil rights complaint alleging deliberate indifference to a prisoner’s known physical and mental illnesses.
Jan Green, 50, was arrested in ...
10th Circuit Reverses Dismissal of Halfway House Escape Charge
by Derek Gilna
A federal prisoner without any detainers (“holds” placed by other law enforcement agencies) can generally count on a period of community confinement at the end of his sentence, during which he reports to a halfway house under the ...
West Virginia Prisoner Wins Over $905,000 in FTCA Claim
by Derek Gilna
A federal prisoner was seriously and permanently injured when, after fleeing from a prison fight, he slipped in a pool of blood and slammed into a metal railing. Following a two-day bench trial in Wheeling, West Virginia, prisoner Terry ...
