As previously reported in PLN, the Oregon Department of Justice (ODOJ) recently turned its prosecutorial power against a hotshot small-town district attorney. [See: PLN, Oct. 2011, p.39].
By the time it was over the DA had resigned, but the ODOJ skulked away with a fat lip and an ugly black ...
An outside investigation has determined that the murder of a Washington Department of Corrections (WDOC) guard was the result of poor staff management and training by prison officials.
On January 29, 2011, prisoner Byron Scherf, 52, strangled WDOC guard Jayme Biendl, 34, to death in the chapel of the Monroe ...
On June 7, 2011, an Illinois U.S. District Court held that federal prison officials had failed to satisfy their burden of proving a prisoner did not exhaust administrative remedies before bringing suit.
Chad Alan Hicks was confined at the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), a federal Bureau of Prisons facility, ...
A January 3, 2011 grand jury report found that suicide prevention was a major concern at the Multnomah County Detention Center (MCDC) in Portland, Oregon. Seventeen days later that finding was tragically underscored by the jail’s third suicide in 10 months.
On January 18, 2011, Michael J. Holmes, 37, was ...
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that Oregon’s aggravated murder statute creates a protected liberty interest in parole eligibility.
In 1982, Oregon state prisoner Douglas Miller was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a 30-year minimum under ORS 163.105(1).
Prisoners convicted of aggravated murder ...
On June 30, 2010, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a district court had abused its discretion in reducing a $750,000 jury award to $75,000 in a case raising illegal strip search claims involving two retired school teachers who were arrested while protesting President George W. Bush and ...
“Prisons are often described as ‘hotbeds’ of terrorism,” but they can also become important “net contributors in the struggle against terrorism” according to a July 2010 joint study by the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) and the National Consortium for the Study of ...
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a Tennessee statute that bars the restoration of voting rights to ex-felons who have outstanding restitution or child support obligations.
Tennessee law disenfranchises convicted felons but allows reinstatement of their voting rights upon completion of their sentence and satisfaction of certain conditions. ...
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that a sex offender treatment requirement did not violate a Pennsylvania prisoner’s constitutional rights.
In 1987, Clifford Newman was convicted of several sex offenses and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Despite losing all of his appeals he continued to maintain his innocence. ...
“This poor woman had two valves diseased, both of them stressing her heart out, giving her heart failure,” said Dr. Sanjiv Kaul, head of cardiovascular medicine at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU), speaking of Katherine Anderson, a 31-year-old Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC) prisoner. “Any person with decent common sense ...
