by John E. Dannenberg
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the use of a stun belt to restrain a California criminal defendant during his trial violated due process of law and was grounds for reversal upon a factual finding that he was prejudiced by it.
Frederico Gonzalez was ...
Reviewed by John E. Dannenberg
Prisons Almanac is a refreshingly eclectic collection of 140 of "the most promising and uplifting prison-related news stories of the previous year" produced in classic almanac format by the Prisons Foundation. The Almanac also provides a current statistical picture of American prisons and prisoners as ...
U.S. Supreme Court: Guantanamo Detainees and "Enemy Combatants" Have Access To Habeas Corpus
by John E. Dannenberg
In three interrelated decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "enemy combatant" detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba or in the continental U.S. may not be held indefinitely without due process of law, ...
by John E. Dannenberg
The Connecticut Department of Corrections (CDC) settled two claims in March 2002 totaling $1,850,000 for the wrongful deaths of a mentally ill prisoner and a severely diabetic prisoner who were transferred to a Virginia "supermax" prison solely due to overcrowding in Connecticut. Additionally, one of the ...
by John E. Dannenberg
A Boston City Police Department (BPD) policy of invasive and degrading strip-searching of all female detainees, regardless of the cause of their detention, while not similarly treating male detainees, violated the unreasonable search provisions of the Fourth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth ...
by John E. Dannenberg
On January 25, 2002, the California Department of Corrections (CDC) entered into a settlement in a class action lawsuit that will upgrade medical care for 157,000 prisoners at all 33 California state prisons. Following the recent cluster of deaths of eight female prisoners and persistent complaints ...
by John E. Dannenberg
The US District Court (N.D. Cal.) issued a permanent injunction against the California Department of Corrections' (CDC) policy that prohibits prisoners from receiving mail that contains Internet-generated information.
Frank Clement, a prisoner at Pelican Bay State Prison (CDC's "supermax"), sued CDC and several named employees under ...
by John E. Dannenberg
On January 8, 2002, a scant two months after being sued, Alabama Department of Corrections (DOC) officials settled a class action complaint filed on behalf of 200 prison workers at the Elmore Correctional Facility who were subject to severely unsanitary and dangerous conditions while working at ...
by John E. Dannenberg
In the largest legal settlement in its history, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed in May, 2002 to pay $27 million to compensate 400,000 former jail prisoners who had been held on wrong warrants, held beyond their release dates or who had been inappropriately ...
by John E. Dannenberg
In a class action civil rights case, the United States District Court (E.D. Calif.) held that California's parole revocation system violates procedural due process of law because it does not provide for a preliminary hearing to determine if probable cause for a parole hold exists.
Parolees ...
