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Articles by Paul Wright

From the Editor

In my October editorial I asked readers what they would like to see more of in PLN as well as any suggestions on how we could improve our content. One of the respondents, Richard Barker, said he would like to see more case law. As far as case law goes, ...

Washington Court Access Suit Settled

In the April, 1994, issue of PLN we reported the filing of Scott v. Peterson which challenged numerous aspects of court access for Washington state prisoners. On October 31, 1995, most of the suit was settled and the settlement terms were effective November 30, 1995. The settlement is between five ...

From the Editor

Welcome to another issue of PLN . Readers who have been with us for awhile may recall that Ed Mead and I have a suit pending against the Washington State Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (ISRB), AKA the parole board. Ed was the co-editor of PLN from 1990, when we started, ...

Washington Translation Suit Settled

On January 23, 1995, Judge William Dwyer, US District Court in Seattle, accepted a stipulated motion in Lopez v. Riveland, Case No. C93-1030WD, a wide ranging lawsuit which challenged the almost complete lack of translation facilities for non- English speaking prisoners in the Washington DOC. This is one of the ...

WA DOC Gets $745,366,000

In the August, 1995, issue of PLN we discussed the myriad anti-prisoner and -defendant legislation passed by the Washington State legislature in its 1995 session. The 1995 session was the longest in state history, running several months past its scheduled closing. Because the legislature squandered its time and resources on ...

Editorial

Welcome to another issue of PLN. Some of you may have noticed some changes in last month's issue of PLN. We have recently undergone some of the biggest transitions in PLN's history. First, if the format looked a little different that is because we have begun the transition to using ...

The Citebook

Review by Paul Wright

The Citebook is a 275 page book written by Tony Darwin designed to help laypersons help themselves in researching their litigation. Now in its eleventh printing the book is organized by subject and gives a brief description of relevant cases. This book is in a category ...

New Prisoners' Self Help Litigation Manual

Reviewed by Paul Wright

The Prisoners' Self Help Litigation Manual (PSHLM) by Dan Manville first appeared in 1983. It was designed to give prisoners an overview of the legal system, a basic overview of what their rights are and guidance on how to actually litigate a suit in federal court. ...

How to Win Prison Disciplinary Hearings

Reviewed by Paul Wright

In the August, 1994, issue of PLN we reviewed the first edition of How to Win Prison Disciplinary Hearings by Allan Parmelee. Now we are excited to tell you about the completed State and Federal Edition. We gave the old HTW an excellent review and noted ...

Spitting by HIV+ Prisoner Results in Attempted Murder Conviction

By Paul Wright

Curtis Weeks, an HIV+ Texas prisoner, spit on a guard and was convicted of attempted murder. PLN rarely reports on criminal law cases and even more rarely do we do so under a by line. We report this case not for its legal value but its news ...