Just a year ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft pointed to the Iraqi prison system as a shining example of the freedoms that the U.S. would bring to Iraq. He said, "Now, all Iraqis can taste liberty in their native land, and we will help make that freedom permanent by assisting ...
A Denver Federal Judge has awarded $10,000 plus costs and attorney fees to a state prisoner whose sexually explicit magazines were confiscated for content reasons.
Michael Milligan, a prisoner in the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC), was transferred without warning from the medium security Fremont Correctional Facility (FCF) to the ...
A business partnership between former head of the Ohio Parole Board, Margarette Ghee, and Ohio prisoner-turned-parole attorney, Derek Farmer, has raised ethical concerns in the legal and criminal justice communities.
After serving 18 years on a 1974 conviction of accessory to murder of a policeman, Farmer was paroled in 1992. ...
On August 7, 2004, I attended the memorial for PLN writer James Quigley. The memorial was held on the beach in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Jim died on October 7, 2003, when he hung himself in the segregation unit of the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Vermont. He ...
by David M. Reutter
The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) agreed on January 15, 2004, to settle a lawsuit brought by diabetic prisoners by upgrading their medical care. The agreement sets a precedent for management and care of diabetic prisoners that is a first in the nation.
An investigation in ...
Before starting on my1 first, of many, pro se articles, I want to thank John Midgley on behalf of the hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners that he has helped through these eight years. He has taken difficult legal concepts for even attorneys to understand and has, with his gift ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 12
by Matthew T. Clarke
On March 31, 2004, the International Court of Justice (also known as the World Court) held that the United States was in violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR).
The case was brought by Mexico on behalf of 52 of its nationals who are ...
Interracial prison riots occurred on October 27 and December 3, 2003 in two southern California privately-contracted minimum security prisons. Because California private prison contractors have no weapons not even pepper spray the riots continued for up to 90 minutes until armed peace officers could arrive to restore order. In one ...
by David M. Reutter
An independent investigation into the deaths of seven prisoners concludes that Vermont Department of Corrections (VDOC) policies were partly to blame for some of the deaths. The deaths occurred between November 25, 2002, and October 7, 2003. After the suicide death of PLN contributing writer James ...
On August 12, 2003, the Marion Correctional Institution played host to a most unlikely revival. The Promise Keepers, the international men's Christian ministry, put on a four-hour service for about 1,000 men, more than half the prison's population.
Joe White, a former Texas A&M assistant football coach, offered a talk ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 21
Four prisoners were injured in a shooting in the maximum security section of the Washington D.C. jail just after 2 p.m. on December 20, 2003. The shooting appeared to be a prisoner-on-prisoner assault, said Corrections Department spokesman Darryl J. Madden.
Four prisoners were injured. One prisoner was shot through the ...
The American Correctional Association A Fraud on Texas Taxpayers
by C. C. Simmons
In June, 2002, the Texas state prison system was finally released from 29 years of federal court oversight. The longest running civil rights class-action lawsuit in the history of the United States came to an end when ...
BOP Good Time Credits Must Be Calculated Against Sentence, Not Pro-Rated To Time Served
by John E. Dannenberg
The U.S. District Court (W.D. Wisc.) held that good time credits available to federal prisoners under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b) must be calculated as a percentage of the sentence imposed rather than ...
Human Rights Watch, 2003, 215 pp.
Reviewed by Tara Herivel
[In the interests of full disclosure, the author of this review contributed to the following Human Rights Watch Report as a source, and this magazine contributed to the gathering of testimonials for the report.]
It is deplorable that this state's ...
by John E. Dannenberg
The U.S. Supreme Court held that Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12132, which guarantees disabled individuals access to all activities of public entities, operated to protect disabled persons restrained by physical barriers in court facilities because such ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 27
by Matthew T. Clarke
On May 19, 2004, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) issued a revised opinion holding that a prisoner being considered for denial of mandatory supervision release has the right to specific notice of a pending hearing and a reasonable amount of time to submit evidence ...
by David M. Reutter
The public entrusts its law enforcement officials to protect it from crime and to use the tax dollars it provides to fulfill that duty. The manipulation of that trust has come to light. An Atlanta audit reveals that police officers caused more than 22,000 crime reports ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 28
On December 17, 2003, a state court of claims in White Plains, New York, awarded state prisoner Jose Santos $30,000 for injuries he sustained while working in the industrial-unit paint shop at the Fishkill Correctional Facility.
In his lawsuit, Santos alleged that on August 21, 1998, he injured his right ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 29
by Matthew T. Clarke
On July 17, 2003, the City of Austin, Texas settled for $9 million a suit brought by the guardian of a wrongfully convicted Texas prisoner.
Richard Danziger, 31, a wrongfully convicted Texas state prisoner, spent 12 years in prison for a rape-murder he didn't commit. In ...
Idaho prisoners check in but they don't check outand it's costing taxpayers thousands. That's the criticism being hurled at the Idaho parole commission and the state Department of Corrections (DOC) for unnecessarily holding prisoners past their approved parole dates.
At any given time, hundreds of state prisoners are being needlessly ...
The current leadership of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has charged 10 current and former leadership members with wrongdoing.
In internal documents received by the Lassen County Times, current President Mike DeWitt of the local CCPOA said both Mark Viale and Andrew Wellborn, past president and vice-president are guilty ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 32
One prisoner was shot dead and four others received wounds requiring outside hospitalization, in a 20 minute riot an October 12, 2003 at Facility "B" of Pleasant Valley State Prison (PVSP), a 5,000 man prison in Coalinga, California.
The evening melee occurred in a recreation yard between 40 Mexican nationals ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 32
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's longstanding policy of prohibiting audio and video recordings of his remarks came back to haunt him on April 7, 2004, when an over zealous Federal Deputy Marshall assigned to protect the justice ordered two journalists to erase recordings they were making of his speech ...
by Charles F.A. Carbone, Esq.
Major changes to prison gang management policies and the use of security housing units (SHU's) or super-maximum prisons are expected in California prisons due to the settlement of a lawsuit brought by a California prisoner. The settlement requires substantial modifications in the procedures used by ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 34
On May 20, 2003, a state district court in El Paso, Texas, awarded $2.5 million in damages plus attorney fees and court costs of $393,518 to the surviving spouse, daughter and estate of a man who died while imprisoned in the El Paso County Jail.
Eduardo Miranda, a 33-year-old physician ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 34
by Matthew T. Clarke
The Tenth Circuit court of appeals held that an amended complaint filed to change the names of John Doe defendants did not related back to the original complaint for statute of limitations purposes. The court also refused to apply equitable tolling.
Jonathan Garrett, a federal prisoner ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 35
Former Illinois governor and Nobel Peace Prize nominee George Ryan was indicted December 17, 2003, on federal charges of racketeering, mail and tax fraud, and lying to investigators.
Federal prosecutors allege that Ryan and his political bedfellows treated state employees and the treasury as personal property. As of December 2003, ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 35
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a civil action under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FICA) for negligently calculating a federal prisoner's release date, or otherwise wrongfully imprisoning the prisoner, does not accrue until the prisoner has established, in a direct or collateral attack on his imprisonment, ...
The federal district court in Kansas has awarded a state prisoner $45,000 plus $30,913.90 for attorney fees and expenses in an excessive force claim brought against three prison guards. The court also denied qualified immunity, found expert witnesses were not required in examining excessive force claims, and found liability in ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 38
On October 6, 2003 officials in Jefferson County, Washington settled a class action lawsuit filed by a Jefferson County Jail prisoner. The suit alleged inhumane living conditions and resulted in sweeping changes in jail policy.
On February 25, 2002 Shawn Orndorff, a prisoner at the jail, filed the complaint in ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 38
Division 3 of the Washington State Court of Appeals (Div. 3) has ruled that county jail trustees who are hurt while performing their duties are entitled to benefits from Labor & Industries (L&I) under RCW § 51.12.035 et seq.
In July of 2002, David J. Wissink was serving 90 days ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 39
In January 2004, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, reported that the number of confirmed Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) cases and AIDS-related deaths among all state and federal prisoners increased from yearend 2000 to yearend 2001. In the same time period, ...
Administrative Remedies Deemed Unavailable Based On Physical Injury
By Bob Williams
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that administrative remedies are unavailable when a prisoner has a physical injury which prevents filing a grievance and a subsequently filed grievance is then rejected as untimely.
Frank Days slipped and ...
by Todd Bussert, Esq.*
In Decemberr 2002, a shock wave reverberated through the federal prison system, when the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced radical changes in its policy on when it will allow prisoners to serve some or all of their sentences in Community Confinement Centers (CCCs or halfway houses). ...
Over ten percent of the guards at the Lyncher State Jail, near Houston Texas, are convicted felons themselves. Houston television station. KPRC uncovered court files showing that about thirty of the guards had served time. Some are repeat offenders; some are ranking officers.
Charges against the guards include felony theft, ...
Loaded on
Sept. 15, 2004
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2004, page 42
Alabama: In March, 2004, Jefferson county jail guard Antonio Allums was charged with misdemeanor assault for attacking jail prisoner Michael Boler in the jail by choking him, slamming his head against a wall and then trying to cover it up. Boler was attacked for no apparent reason. Allums had previously ...
