Boot Camp Or Boot Hill? Troubled Teens Suffer From Too Much Tough Love
by Roger Hummel
On February 15, 2002, Charles Long II was arrested on murder and child abuse charges growing from the death of Anthony Haynes. On July 1, 2001 the 14 year old Haynes died while attending ...
In December 2001, the state inspector general concluded an excoriating audit of a city-run prison in Folsom, California. The audit was the result of a six-month investigation that met a great deal of resistance from Folsom officials. It "revealed deteriorating buildings, broken equipment, lax supervision of inmates, visitors and volunteers, ...
Over the years, PLN has conducted a number of sample mailings to potential subscribers. This has always been a good way to expand our circulation, but such mailings are expensive to do. We have long recognized that our best outreach resource is our readership. To that end, we want to ...
by Paul Wright
Over the years, PLN has conducted a number of sample mailings to potential subscribers. This has always been a good way to expand our circulation, but such mailings are expensive to do. We have long recognized that our best outreach resource is our readership. To that end, ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 10
by Matthew T. Clarke
The Sixth Circuit court of appeals has held that 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(d)(2), the section of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which limits losing civil rights defendants' liability to 150% of the damage award, did not violate the Equal Protection component of the Fifth Amendment.
William ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 11
California Prisoners Remanded To Jail For Resentencing Do Not Accrue Jail Behavior Credits
For the narrow question of which behavior credits apply to a state prisoner remanded to county jail solely for resentencing, the California Supreme Court ruled that because he was still a convicted prisoner and not a pre-trial ...
In early January 2002, an unidentified California prisoner received a heart transplant at the Stanford Medical Center. It was the first time any state prisoner has received an organ transplant; and it is not without controversy. Inflated prison populations, longer prison sentences, and an aging prison population make prisoner health ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 13
A federal district court in Illinois held that Chong Won Tai, a federal prisoner, was injured due to negligence by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and awarded Tai $900 in damages. Tai was injured while being transported from one prison to another in a BOP van when the van was ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 13
Under pressure from Stop Prisoner Rape, a nonprofit human rights organization, and nearly 100 other human rights, HIV/AIDS, prisoner rights, and sexual violence organizations, Dr. Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. has decided to stop airing a national television commercial that makes light of rape in prison.
The commercial, created by Young & ...
by Mumia Abu Jamal
For many jailhouse lawyers, the texts of court rulings are read with a close and rapt attention that would be the envy of any conscientious law professor. The writer knows one guy, who, after years of study of criminal law cases, can recite from sheer memory, ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 14
As many local governments are discovering, there is a new twist on an old saying: Nothing is certain except the death penalty and higher taxesand the high cost of capital punishment.
Quitman County in Mississippi raised taxes three times in the 1990s and took out a $150,000 loan to pay ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 15
Five girls who were incarcerated at the Chalkville juvenile lockup in Alabama have filed a massive $171 million lawsuit against the agency that runs the jail, the Department of Youth Services (DYS). The suit charges, among other things, that the girls were the victims of repeated and routine sexual abuse ...
The California Youth Authority (CYA) houses 6,000 juvenile offenders and was once considered a model for juvenile justice in this country. However, after decades of declining funding and worsening conditions, the California Youth Authority has deteriorated to where severely mentally ill juveniles go untreated, teachers do not show up for ...
June was a good month for many death row prisoners. In Ring v. Arizona , 122 S.Ct. 2428 (2002) and Atkins v. Virginia , 122 S.Ct. 2242 (2002), the Supreme Court placed new and significant limitations on the death penalty. These decisions could affect hundreds of prisoners.
In Atkins , ...
by David M. Reutter
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld the grant of a preliminary injunction to California Muslim prisoners .See: Mayweathers v. Terhune, 136 F. Supp. 2d 1152 (E.D. Cal. 2001). Prison officials appealed the injunction arguing that: the prisoners lacked standing; the district court ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 18
More than 150 law enforcement officers from various Georgia agencies including the Department of Corrections, have been moonlighting as actors in gay bondage videotapes since 1980. Sold over the internet, the tapes include scenes of kidnapping and torture.
In November 1999, Hays State prison guards Roy Utt and Lt. Joe ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 19
The Connecticut Supreme Court has decided that retroactive application of a State law raising the time for parole eligibility from 50% to 85% of time served violates the ex post facto clause of the U.S. Constitution. The court further found that the law in question was not intended to apply ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 20
On April 9, 2002, in a chilling first application of the USA-Patriot Act (pushed into law after 9-11), the U.S. government indicted attorney Lynne Stewart along with three Arab men, Mohammed Yousry, Ahmed Abdel Sattar, and Yassir Al-Sirri. Lynne Stewart is the lawyer for Islamic cleric Omar Abdel Rahman, who ...
by John E. Dannenberg
The US Supreme Court held that due process of law was satisfied when a reasonable attempt was made to serve a federal prisoner with a statutory notice of administrative forfeiture of his property, even though he never received that notice.
Larry Dusenberry was arrested in April ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 22
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) transferred its rulemaking authority regarding civil aviation security to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The TSA subsequently promulgated new rules regarding the transportation of prisoners on civilian airlines.
The new regulation, 49 C.F.R. § 1544.221, effective February 17, ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 22
Four Washington state prisoners have filed suit against the Department of Corrections (DOC) over DOC's longstanding practice of charging prisoners to ship their own personal property when they are transferred from one institution to another, and doing so under the threat that their property would be destroyed if they failed ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 23
by Matthew T. Clarke
The Supreme Court of Louisiana has declared that the Corrections Administrative Remedy Procedure (CARP), La.Rev.Stat. 15:1171-1179, when applied to tort claims, violates article V,16 of the Louisiana constitution.
Michael Wayne Pope, a Louisiana state prisoner, was severely injured on his prison job, requiring multiple surgeries and ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 24
A federal district court in Illinois has denied a motion to dismiss a complaint for the failure to alter treatment for a prisoner's hemorrhoid problem. Prisoner Brian Jones brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against six medical doctors at Illinois' Stateville and Joliet Correctional Centers. The defendants sought dismissal ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 24
The Massachusetts Supreme Court has upheld summary judgment against the Massachusetts Prisoners Association Political Action Committee (MPAPAC). The court also upheld disciplinary sanctions by the Massachusetts Department of Corrections (DOC) against MPAPAC cofounder Michael Shea. The ruling largely destroys MPAPAC.
Shea, four other DOC prisoners, and Sandra Currie, a free ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 25
The Eleventh Circuit US Court of Appeals held that multiple prisoners, when asserting in forma pauperis (IFP) status in a federal civil rights action, cannot join their claims to pro-rate a single filing fee among all the plaintiffs.
Earnest Hubbard led a group of 18 Alabama prisoners in a pro ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 25
The Federal District Court for the Northern District of Ohio has granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Marion Correctional Institution (MCI), Marion, Ohio, preventing Warden Christine Money from enforcing a grooming policy against two Orthodox Chassidic Jews.
Michael Goodman and another Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DORC) prisoner named ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 26
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that it is without jurisdiction to hear an interlocutory appeal on qualified immunity issues where material facts are in dispute. The Court of Appeals let stand most of a district court's denial of qualified immunity to Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 26
Microsoft Corporation, the computer software giant based in Redmond, Washington, has demanded a $1.5 million payment for software "licensing shortfalls." The demand was made on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), the agency that operates the state's massive prison and parole system.
In 2001, the TDCJ audited its more ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 27
No Qualified Immunity for Guards who Failed to Provide CPR
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit struck down a district court's grant of qualified immunity and summary judgment in favor of three Nebraska prison guards who had failed to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to a prisoner who ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 27
On February 19, 2002, a federal jury in Lubbock, Texas, awarded $287,500 to a former prisoner raped in the Lamb county jail. The plaintiff, who used the pseudonym, J.L., suffers from scoliosis and brain damage. He was serving a 29-day sentence on unspecified charges. J.L. had asked to be placed ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 28
A federal district court in Florida has denied summary judgment to a guard that threatened violence against a prisoner who filed a lawsuit against the guard's brother. While confined at Florida's Liberty Correctional Institution, prisoners Joseph Wilson and David Croft filed a lawsuit against Sgt. Michael Silcox. On at least ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 28
A federal district court in Illinois has denied summary judgment in a prisoner's denial of dental treatment claim under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and expounded on the relations back upon amendment provision of Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(c). While a detainee at the Cook County Jail (CCJ), Henry Manney started complaining daily ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 29
Thomas Smith is again in hot water over his seemingly endless sexoriented misconduct. On February 12, 2002 he was fired from his therapist position at the Special Commitment Center (SCC) on McNeil Island near Steilacoom, Washington. He had "treated" civilly committed sex predators imprisoned at the SCC since 1999. Smith ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 30
California: On June 24, 2002, San Francisco prosecutor Floyd Andrews pleaded not guilty to felony assault charges stemming from his stabbing of Martin Stanley when he caught Stanley urinating on a fence in front of his home. Andrews stabbed Stanley seriously enough to expose his intestines and sever part of ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 32
Late in 1997, Arizona began moving death row prisoners to a super-maximum security facility. There, they are held in small, separate cells for 23 hours a day with almost no interaction with other human beings.
In Florida, prison officials recently added a mesh to the outside of death row cells ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2002
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2002, page 32
by Paul Bergman and Sara J. Berman-Barrett. Nolo, 606 pages, paperback, $29.95
A sure-fire method to eliminate future overcrowding of our nation's prisons would be to compel each aspiring scofflaw to read the third edition of The Criminal Law Handbook before his or her 18th birthday. If we agree that ...
