Like every other state, Oregon has been hit hard by the worst economic crisis in recent American history. Yet standing in an ever-deepening fiscal crater, prosecutors and victims’ rights groups keep handing out shovels and Oregonians stubbornly refuse to stop digging. This may not be what President Obama envisioned when ...
Pendleton, Oregon boys pride themselves on their hunting abilities. Deep in the heart of Oregon’s high desert, hunting is an age-old rite of passage and a way of life. Guards at Pendleton’s Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution (EOCI) brag constantly about their hunting prowess, though they’re probably doing so much more ...
Ninth Circuit Flip-Flops: Denial of Washington Sex Offender’s Community Custody Release
Held Unconstitutional, Then Constitutional
by Mark Wilson
Illustrating the axiom that the law means whatever a judge decides it means, in a 2-to-1 decision, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Washington state law creates ...
Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC) Food Services Administrator Farhad “Fred” Monem and his wife, Karen, accepted over $1.3 million in bribes and kickbacks in the worst public corruption scandal in Oregon’s history. [See: PLN, Aug. 2008, p.1].
While contemplating a plea bargain that required significant prison time, Fred fled on ...
Guards at the Multnomah County Detention Center (MCDC) couldn’t be trusted to stay off Internet porn sites during work hours, so Sheriff Bob Skipper pulled the plug effective December 1, 2008.
Rampant, improper use of the Internet at the jail came to light in 2007 when a guard boasted on ...
First Circuit Awards Defendant Costs Under FRCP 68; Plaintiff Rejected ?$10,000 Offer, Was Awarded $5,500
by Mark Wilson
The First Circuit Court of Appeals has awarded a defendant costs under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 68, after a prisoner rejected a joint settlement offer of $10,000 and was subsequently ...
Empty Oregon Jail Has Cost $1.25 Million; Grand Jury Demands Humility and Creative Solutions
by Mark Wilson
The Wapato Jail in Multnomah County, Oregon was completed in 2004 at a cost of $58 million, but has sat empty ever since because the county can’t afford to operate the facility.
On ...
Sheriff “Hollywood Hewett” Sentenced to 16 Months
by Mark Wilson
Like a moth to a flame, North Carolina Sheriff Ronald Hewett had a fatal attraction to television cameras and the bright spotlight. In the end, “Hollywood Hewett’s” mistress betrayed him, exposing the flamboyant crime fighter as just another hypocritical, corrupt ...
Missouri Court Reverses $244,636 Incarceration Cost Award Against Prisoner
by Mark Wilson
The Missouri Court of Appeals has concluded that a factual dispute as to whether the state had “good cause” to seek reimbursement of incarceration costs barred summary judgment in an action brought against a state prisoner.
Under the ...
Washington’s Top Prison Doctor Resigns Over Executions; Entire Execution Team Later Quits Following PLN Records Request
by Mark Wilson
Washington State death row prisoner Darold Ray Stenson was scheduled for execution in December 2008. He got an unlikely stay, however, when the top physician for the Washington Department of Corrections ...
