by Mark Wilson
We are not indifferent to the serious dangers faced by petitioners and other inmates at heightened risk of contracting COVID-19 in Washington’s correctional facilities.”
That was a claim by a Majority of the en banc Washington state Supreme Court on July 23, 2020, in a 5-4 decision ...
by Mark Wilson
"We said since day one, prisons, especially private prisons shielded from transparency and oversight, are a hot spot for COVID-19 transmission.”
That’s what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nevada said in a July 2020 statement criticizing the “outrageous and disturbing” infection of 69.7 percent of Nevada prisoners confined within an Arizona prison operated by Tennessee-based CoreCivic, one of the largest private prison firms in the country.
The novel coronavirus that causes the disease ravaged Arizona like a wildfire in the summer of 2020, with one in five Arizonans testing positive. On a single day, July 18, 2020, the state reported 147 new deaths to COVID-19, versus just nine deaths in Nevada the same day. Arizona has no statewide mask mandate like Nevada’s to combat the pandemic.
Thanks, in part, to a comprehensive testing initiative, just 18 (less than 0.15%) of Nevada’s 12,000-plus state prisoners, as well as 54 guards, had tested positive for COVID-19 by July 2020. But a group of 99 prisoners that the Nevada Department of Corrections (NOOC) sent to CoreCivic’s 1,926-bed Saguaro Correctional Center, in Eloy, Arizona, was not so lucky.
As of July 16, 2020, four CoreCivic staff members and 69 ...
by Mark Wilson
On July 15, 2020, the Idaho Supreme Court held that an arrestee acts voluntarily when given an opportunity to surrender contraband before entering jail but chooses to continue possessing it.
On January 20, 2018, Idaho Falls Police arrested Nicole Lyn Gneiting on drug charges. Police felt a ...
by Mark Wilson
On July 15, 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed a lower court’s conclusion that a detainee’s attempted suicide was not caused by objective unreasonableness of jail staff.
Wisconsin police arrested Zachary Pulera during the early morning of April 21, 2012. He ...
by Mark Wilson
The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s dismissal of a criminal proceeding when the victim refused to comply with a subpoena to appear for trial.
Alex David Murray Lorenzo was charged with attempted third-degree assault, constituting domestic violence, for attempting to physically injure his stepfather. ...
by Mark Wilson
On July 20, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment on a prisoner’s retaliation claim. The court found that suspicious timing alone is insufficient evidence of retaliatory motive.
Illinois prisoner Elijah Manuel’s disabled cellmate became hostile ...
by Mark Wilson
A longtime California prison warden abruptly retired during an investigation into alleged theft, lying and bribery.
Joe Lizarraga began working for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in 1986. He was appointed warden of the Mule Creek State Prison (MCSP) in 2013, where he was named Warden of the Year by the California Prison Industries Authority in 2017.
Lizarraga reportedly stole from the Interfaith Food Bank Thrift Store in Sutter Creek, California on September 14, 2018. Despite earning an estimated $150,000, annually, he allegedly removed price tags from merchandise, then suggested lower prices to the cashier.
When Sutter Creek police investigated the matter, Lizarraga allegedly lied to the police chief, claiming that he did not suggest prices to the clerk. He also told the chief that he purchased the equipment for his family when it was allegedly for personal financial gain.
Lizarraga wrote a $125 personal money order in an attempt to dissuade a witness from participating in a criminal prosecution and later made a second bribery attempt using prison charitable funds, according to investigative reports.
On January 25, 2019, FBI agents raided Lizarraga’s Mule Creek office, seized his computer and escorted him off the ...
by Mark Wilson
We are never again going to take a commission or make money off of products and services provided to incarcerated people and their support networks, their families,” declared Anne Stuhldreher, director of the San Francisco Treasurer’s Financial Justice Project, as she announced the county’s unanimous July 14, ...
by Mark Wilson
The state of Maine and medical provider CorrectCare Solutions (now Wellpath) paid a 14-year-old $250,000 after two guards at a juvenile detention center “bashed” his face into a metal bed frame, knocking out two teeth when he was age 11. Parts of the December 9, 2019 settlement, ...
by Mark Wilson
On November 8, 2019, three New York detectives agreed to pay $50,000 to settle false arrest claims brought by an informant they charged with conspiring to kill an Assistant District Attorney (ADA), the settlement agreement and court records show.
In March 2014, Russell D. Towner was a ...
