Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 1
ONE DAY SCHOOL BOYCOTT AT MONROE
The statewide practice for enforcing attendance at prison schools is simple: three unexcused absences and they drop you. Well, some prisoncrat decided that inmate attendance at the Reformatory was not up to par with those at other facilities. Rather than merely enforce the standard ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 2
M.H., Walla Walla
People should start giving some consideration to how the Parole Board is conducting the 0.100 paroleability hearings. The Myers, Addleman, and other cases, as well as the so-called 1400 Bill, all tell the Board to restructure our minimum terms in a manner reasonably consistent with the SRA. ...
THE TERROR
The still air of my prison cell, thick with smoke, swallows my brooding thoughts, spitting them back at me stinking of loneliness.
I stare at tobacco stained fingers, wondering at how I can bemoan the years taken from me, and yet steal some more.
And somewhere still, in ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 3
Nearly one out of every four black men between the ages of 20 and 29 nationwide is in prison or jail or on probation or parole on a given day, according to a new study based on records of the Justice Department and the Bureau of the Census. The 23.0% ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 3
NEW PRISON SPENDING JUMPS BY 73%
Federal and state corrections' systems will spend more than 6.7 billion on new prison construction in the period 1989-90, an increase of 73% compared to 1987-88, according to Corrections Compendium, a corrections research and information service.
The prison systems in all 50 states and ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 3
On the evening of January 17, 1989, Oregon Department of Corrections Director Michael Francke left his office at the Dome Building in Salem. He never made it out of the parking lot. Someone had stabbed him in the heart. He died on his office building's side porch.
The initial investigation ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 4
Frank E. Gable has been charged with murder in connection with the killing of Oregon DOC Director Michael Francke. The ex-con Gable said: "I don't know how I first got implicated, but I'm real scared it's going to end in me getting (convicted) for something I ain't did."
Gable came ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 4
MOST PUNISHED FOR EXERCISING RIGHT TO JURY TRIAL
In 89% of the estimated 583,000 felony convictions in state courts during 1986, the defendant pleaded guilty instead of standing trial before a judge or jury, the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics said on February 25th. The Bureau said that ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 4
GUARD CHARGED WITH AIDING ESCAPE
An Illinois correctional officer was arrested in mid-February for allegedly providing inmates with hacksaw blades to aid in their escape from Joliet Prison.
According to Nic Howell, the public information officer for Illinois DOC, the 13 year veteran guard, William Smith, was charged with two ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 4
ONLY FIVE STATES NOT UNDER COURT ORDER, STUDY SAYS
Only five states (Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, N. Dakota and Vermont) are not currently involved in major litigation over prison conditions, says a newly released report from the ACLU's National Prison Project. Another finding of the seven page document, "Status Report: ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 5
PRISONER GETS $500 IN RECORDS SUIT
A prisoner in Michigan State sent a letter to DOC stating he'd received a major misconduct infraction and was found guilty. He then requested copies of the misconduct report, all statements and documents submitted at the hearing, the hearing investigation report and the hearing ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 5
.
A prisoner brought a civil rights action against the supervisory officers at the facility at which he was confined, claiming a violation of his rights under the Eighth Amendment to be free of cruel and unusual punishment. A federal appeals court found in favor of the prisoner.
The evidence ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 5
$241,000 DAMAGES UPHELD IN BEATING
A prisoner riot broke out when thirty prisoners forced their way into an area where they fought guards who were trying to remove a drunken prisoner. During the fight, one guard was fatally stabbed and several others wounded. When the disturbance quieted down, prison officials ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 6
A prisoner brought a suit challenging a Bureau of Prisons policy (P.S. 5265.8) mandating that letters from law firms, the courts, or any other communication which is considered privileged, be marked with special buzz words on the outside of the envelope. If the words "Legal/Special Mail - Open Only in ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 6
WALLA WALLA INSTALLS FOURTH BUNK
by M. H.
We here at the Walls are also experiencing the governor's state of emergency. Our captors have shut down 8-Wing for remodeling. In 6-Wing they have just installed the 4th bunk on A and B tiers, and on the rest of the tiers ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 6
The plaintiff prisoner was confined in a special housing unit following an alleged assault upon a guard who was attempting to break up a fight between two inmates. At his disciplinary hearing, he requested that the two inmates be called as witnesses. The hearing officer declined to call either of ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
by Ed Mead
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 7
Welcome to the first issue of Prisoners' Legal News. Your editors are Paul Wright and Ed Mead.
While we have no "party line," this newsletter will tend to reflect our class orientation. If you do not want to be on the mailing list, just write to our outside address and ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 7
SRA OFFENDERS GET GOOD TIME OFF TERM
On March 29, 1990, in the case of In re Mota (Case No. 56284-9), the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Corrections must give good time credit for pre-sentence confinement (jail time) to defendants who committed crimes after July 1, 1984, ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 8
Prisoners in the horribly overcrowded Strangeways prison in Manchester, England rose in revolt on 1 April, 1990 protesting the conditions that had 1,660 men in a prison built in 1868 for 970 men. The prison does not have plumbing in the cells and the prisoners live in squalor. They are ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 8
Since November 30, 1989, 42 political prisoners in Spain, mainly members of GRAPO (October 1st Revolutionary Anti-Fascist Groups) have been on hunger strikes demanding their release from isolation and control units and an end to the campaign of repression against them, which includes dispersion through the Spanish State, beatings, psychological ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 9
Novara, Italy On January 30, 1990, 20 political prisoners (members of the Red Brigades) held a sit-in, in the political prison to protest the continued solitary confinement of a fellow prisoner based on a guard's trumped up allegations. After 30 minutes of refusing to return to their cells, the prison ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 9
"The Other Face of Europe"
This is the title of a book printed by the atalan Solidarity Committee in Barcelona. The book deals with the huge number of political prisoners being held throughout Western European prisons and jails because of their political beliefs and activities. The book contains sections in ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1990
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1990, page 10
MARK LARUE GETS 14 MORE YEARS
After spending more than five years in Walla Walla's segregation unit as a result of his political work on the inside, Mark LaRue was subjected to an involuntary out-of-state transfer. He was then bounced from one jurisdiction to another for nearly ten more years. ...
