Federal Legal Standards For Prison Medical Care
by Dan Manville
The State is required to provide adequate medical care to those it confines.1 In this time of shrinking budgets, many prison systems have turned to contracting with private health care providers to meet their legal obligations. Some states have turned ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 10
The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a Pennsylvania Federal District Court's dismissal with prejudice of a prisoner's 42 U.S.C. §1983 claim for failure to exhaust remedies.
William Boyd a prisoner in custody of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC). He has been housed in Administrative Custody (AC) ...
In May 2002, Texas Parole Officer Connie Lynn Stones pleaded guilty to charges of solicitation of capital murder after police recorded her trying to hire a hit-man to kill her lover's girlfriend.
Stone was in love with Brett Williams, who had once been under her supervision and she was eager ...
Welcome to the thirteenth anni-versary issue of PLN. This marks the 157th issue of PLN that we have published since our first issue appeared in May, 1990. In that time period a lot has happened, both with PLN and the prison system we cover. For one thing, both grew. PLN ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 13
On October 28, 2002, Corrections Corp. of America, (CCA) settled its 1997 federal taxes after an audit by the Internal Revenue Service for the sum of $54 million. The IRS challenged the validity of the tax deductions that the former Prison Realty, a real estate investment trust (REIT) had claimed ...
by Denise Johnston & Michael Carlin
In 1999, the Michigan Department of Corrections [MDOC] imposed a broad set of restrictions upon parent-child prison visitation. These restrictions included prohibition of visits to prisoners by minor siblings, nieces and nephews, and by children unaccompanied by a parent or legal guardian. After appeal, ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 15
by Matthew T. Clarke
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a Texas prisoner erroneously released on mandatory supervision has a right to calendar time spent on the streetbut not any potential good conduct timefollowing revocation.
Fernando Thompson, a Texas state prisoner, filed a petition for writ of habeas ...
Review by Alex Coolman
In April of 2001, Human Rights Watch released a report called No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prison. The report, written by Joanne Mariner, contains dozens of first-hand accounts of prisoner rape and sexual assault, stories that are both horrifying and sobering.
Some of the most ...
by Steven D. Stark, Broadway Books, 1999, soft back, 283 pages
Review by John E. Dannenberg
Write succinctly! Or, alterna-tively, bore your intended reading audience to death with burdensome legal treatises steeped in excessive, redundant verbosity, liberally laced with old-as-the-hills cliches.
Get it? Writing to Win is a refreshing, practical ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 18
The U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed and remanded in part a North Dakota Federal District Court's dismissal of a state prisoner's claim that he was denied treatment for hepatitis C.
Dale J. Burke is a prisoner of the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (NDDCR). Burke ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 18
Texas Prison Guard Charged with Raping Male Prisoner; Prisoner Files §1983 Complaint
Nathan Essary, a slightly built 22-year-old prisoner, was gang-raped at the Rogelio Sanchez State Jail near El Paso, Texas. Following the rape, Essary was transferred to the John Montford Psychiatric Facility in Lubbock for treatment. Then, in May ...
On December 18, 2002, in a 6-1 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered a fundamental change in the way the Ohio Adult Parole Board, a division of the Adult Parole Authority (APA), makes parole determinations. The decision may affect the release dates of as many as 18,000 Ohio prisoners.
In ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 20
In August 2002, California prison officials agreed to pay a settlement of $400,000 to former guard Terri Sanchez in the latest in a series of suits for aggravated sexual harassment filed by female guards at the California Correctional Center in Susanville. The total amount of settlements and awards over the ...
by David M. Reutter
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held that prison guards at the Florida State Prison (FSP) who beat prisoner David. C. Skrtich are not entitled to dismissal. Two of the defendants, Timothy A. Thornton and Jason P. Griffis, are the same guards recently acquitted in ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 21
Washington Prisoner L & I Statutes Struck Down
The Washington Supreme Court struck down a statutory scheme which denies labor and industries benefits to state prisoners with life sentences and no dependents. RCW 51.32.040(3) and 72.60.102 were declared unconstitutional. because they deny lifers without dependents any monetary compensation for work ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 21
On June 23, 2002, in the first case prosecuted before a jury under a new harassment law, a Texas jury convicted a prisoner of harassment and sentenced him to 20-years in prison.
Jeffery Wayne Wheatly, a 35-year old Texas state prisoner, was indicted for throwing feces and urine on two ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 22
by Matthew T. Clarke
A Texas state court of appeals has ruled that the safety investigation and accident report of an accident in which a prisoner was injured gave the prison system actual notice of the prisoner's claim as required by § 51.014(8).
Brian Edward Simons, a Texas state prisoner, ...
by David M. Reutter
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has reversed the grant of summary judgment favoring prison officials in a Bivens action filed by Catholic Christian prisoners at the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, Florida, which challenged the BOP's rule prohibiting prisoners from receiving Communion ...
by John E. Dannenberg
The Sixth Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled that a prison psychologist's awareness of a prisoner's potential for suicide was sufficient to defeat the psychologist's qualified immunity defense in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 wrongful death civil rights action brought by the prisoner's estate.
Michigan state ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 24
A Texas court of appeals has reversed for retrial the conviction of former Texas City Unit TDCJ-ID guard Charles Melvin Page for sexual assault and impersonating a police officer. Page was convicted of having flashed a badge, claimed he was a cop, and demanded oral sex from a prostitute in ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 24
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, released a state-by-state summary of the Sex Offender Registries (SOR's) throughout the United States. The report, released in March 2002, compared the states' SOR's in February 2001 to BJS's prior reports in 1998 and 1999. These ...
by John E. Dannenberg
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the right to procreate is fundamentally inconsistent with incarceration, thereby upholding a California state prison policy disallowing a prisoner from sending a sperm specimen to his wife for artificial insemination.
William Gerber, serving 111 years-to-life ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 26
Texas Pro Se Litigant Entitled
to Notice of Hearing
A Texas court of appeals has held that a pro se litigant who files an affidavit of indigence, when seeking to appeal an adverse ruling in a civil case in forma pauperis, is entitled to notice of a hearing on the ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 26
The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, reversing a New Jersey District Court, has held that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) extends to a county jail and to a New Jersey Vicinage that was not, at the time of the complaint, integrated into the state court system.
In September ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 27
Dismissal for Failure to Allege
Physical Injury Improper
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that dismissal under42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e) for failure to allege physical injury was improper where a prisoner's complaint requests injunctive and/or declaratory relief and the pleadings do not reveal the nature of damages sought.
New ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 27
In September 2002, the Texas Board of Criminal Justice fired John Fant, head of the State Counsel for Offenders (SCFO), after an investigation revealed that he had lied on a 10-year-old employment application.
In a written statement, the prison board alleged that Fant stated on his 1992 application that he ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 28
Third Circuit Upholds $100,000 Damages Award
to Assaulted Pennsylvania Prisoner
The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the jury verdict and damages award in a Pennsylvania case involving the assault of a state prisoner by guards. [PLN, Sept. `99.]
Gerald Henderson was a prisoner of the Pennsylvania Department ...
Prisons in Vermont and Pennsylvania dealt with serious outbreaks of infectious disease this past August resulting in the disinfection of an office complex and the filing of a class action lawsuit, respectively.
Vermont
In late July 2002, an outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease, a sometimes fatal bacterial infection, began in Vermont's ...
by John E. Dannenberg
Amending its earlier decision at 240 F.3d 845 [PLN, June `01], the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit clarified the evaluation of qualified immunity claims by prison officials at the summary judgment state of a prisoner's Eighth Amendment excessive force civil rights complaint.
Donnell ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 30
San Mateo County Sues California Jail
Phone Service Providers
On July 7, 2002, the county of San Mateo, California, brought suit against Pacific Bell and AT&T alleging they cheated the county out of millions of dollars earmarked for a fund supporting prisoner services. The suit, filed in San Mateo Superior ...
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the Colorado Federal District Court's permanent injunction directing the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) to provide kosher meals to qualified prisoners in accordance with Orthodox Jewish law and rejected the CDOC's co-pay proposal.
Charles Beerheide, Sheldon Perlman, and Allen Fistell, all prisoners ...
by John E. Dannenberg
Two U.S. District Courts recently made exceptions to the Prison Litigation Reform Act's (PLRA) requirement to exhaust administrative remedies. The Central District of California court ruled that when a prisoner's administrative appeal had been "granted" at an intermediate level, his remedies were deemed exhausted because he ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 32
A federal court in Wisconsin held that the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (WDOC) lacks the authority to divert the funds of an out-of-state prisoner into a release account, or to cause the receiving state to do so.
In 1998, Wisconsin prisoner Anthony Doty was transferred out-of-state to a private prison ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 32
Disciplinary Boards are not "State Courts"
Under AEDPA
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that prison disciplinary boards are not "state courts" for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). As such, "the state may not benefit from § 2254 (e) (1)'s presumption of correctness in appeals from prison disciplinary ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 33
Continuing a trend first noted in 2000, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, reported that the overall growth rate of the United States' prison population was quite small. In some states, prison populations actually declined. PLN has previously reported on prison population ...
Loaded on
May 15, 2003
published in Prison Legal News
May, 2003, page 34
Afghanistan: In December, 2002, two prisoners being interrogated by US forces at the Bagram base near Kabul were beaten to death by their captors. Prisoners at the base are routinely kept naked, hooded, shackled and deprived of sleep for days on end while being beaten for good measure. The dead ...
