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Prison Legal News: August, 2005

Issue PDF
Volume 16, Number 8

In this issue:

  1. Prison Health Services: As Health Care in Jails Goes Private, 10 Days Can Be a Death Sentence (p 1)
  2. Fatal Justice: The New Maryland (p 1)
  3. From the Editor (p 6)
  4. Arbitrary Draconian Restrictions on Texas Parolees (p 7)
  5. Former Connecticut Governor Rowland Pleads Guilty to Corruption Charges in Juvenile Prison Kickback Scheme (p 8)
  6. Pennsylvania Jail Prisoner Settles Use-Of-Force Suit For $15,000 (p 9)
  7. $600,000 Settlement In Death Of Unmedicated Wisconsin Prisoner (p 9)
  8. Federal Prisoner Wins Right To Marry, Fees Awarded (p 10)
  9. $99,981 In Fees Awarded For Successful Massachusetts Court Access Suit (p 10)
  10. Prison Health Services: Missed Signals in New York Jails Open Way to Season of Suicides (p 11)
  11. Settlements Reached In Alabama Women Prisoners' Class-Action Suit (p 11)
  12. CCA Finally Loses Contract at Mismanaged Tulsa Jail (p 14)
  13. U.S. Supreme Court: Michigan Appellate Attorneys Have (p 16)
  14. New Hampshire Prisoner's Due Process Suit Nets $54,000 in Fees and Damages (p 17)
  15. $800,000 Awarded to Wrongly Convicted Tennessee Man (p 18)
  16. Texas Attorney General Clarifies Confiscation Law Governing Prisoner Art Sales (p 18)
  17. National Prison Reform Commission Started (p 19)
  18. Michigan Guard Who Procured Hit On Prisoner Must Pay $200,000 Damages (p 20)
  19. Fifth Circuit Upholds $5,000 Excessive Force Verdict Against Wackenhut Guard (p 20)
  20. New York Senator Returned To Jail After Illegal Release (p 20)
  21. PREA Data Collection Efforts Underway (p 21)
  22. Another CCA Prison in Oklahoma, Another Riot (p 22)
  23. Army Prison Ban On PLN Containing Postage-Stamp-Exchange Ad Is Enjoined, But Ban On Internet Mail Up (p 23)
  24. California Prison Employee Paid $500,000 To Settle Whistleblower Retaliation Suit (p 23)
  25. Federal Immigration Detainee Taken Off Life Support Without Family's Consent (p 23)
  26. Supreme Court Finds Ohio Supermax Placement Policy Constitutional (p 24)
  27. Brain Dead California Prisoner Guarded Around The Clock (p 24)
  28. California Prison Guard Gets Time For Setting Up Prisoner Beating (p 24)
  29. Report: Federal Prison Guards Sexually Abuse Prisoners With Near Impunity (p 26)
  30. Washington DOC Settles Contempt Action For $500,000; Money To Fund Patient Advocate (p 26)
  31. Los Angeles County Settles Parolee's Overdetention Suit For $80,000 (p 26)
  32. Alabama Workers' Comp Act No Bar to Psychological Torts (p 27)
  33. Wackenhut Settles Suit Over Premature Birth for $98,000 (p 27)
  34. $15,000 Settlement In Hawaii Voting Rights Suit (p 27)
  35. U.S. Supreme Court: State Prisoners May Challenge Unconstitutional Parole Procedures Under § 1983 If Earlier Release Doesn't Necessarily Follow (p 28)
  36. 42 Alabama AIDS Prison Deaths In Five Years Spurs Major Medical Suit Settlement (p 28)
  37. Prisoners of Love: Good Advice for Those Separated By Walls But United by Love (p 29)
  38. Maricopa County, Arizona, Settles Wrongful Imprisonment Suit For $1.4 Million (p 29)
  39. RLUIPA Upheld by U.S. Supreme Court (p 30)
  40. Louisiana Prison Writer Free After 44 Years (p 30)
  41. Jury Trial in Prison Violates Oregon Constitution (p 31)
  42. Suit Over Rape of Prisoner By TDCJ Employee Settled for $118,318.56 and Beach Property (p 32)
  43. Supreme Court Decision Orders Release of 920 Mariel Cubans; ICE: Dumps them In the Streets Without Aid (p 32)
  44. Massachusetts Law, Not PLRA, Applies to Attorneys Fee Award in State Court § 1983 Action for Native (p 33)
  45. California Guard Wins $10 Million Default Judgment Against Assaultive Prisoners (p 33)
  46. $1 Million L.A. County Jail Rape Award Overturned (p 34)
  47. Colorado Teenagers Raped By Guards Settle For $165,000 Each (p 35)
  48. Former Wackenhut Guard Awarded $600,000 For Wrongful Termination (p 36)
  49. Arizona Boot Camp Director Convicted In Teen’s Death (p 36)
  50. Tennessee Public Records Act Requires Delivery Of Records To Prisoners (p 36)
  51. Court Holds Temperatures on Florida's Death Row Constitutional; Class Action Exhaustion Explained (p 37)
  52. Staph Infections Kill Women Prisoners In Pennsylvania; Coroner’s Office Raided (p 37)
  53. Kentucky State Auditor Blasts Prison Industries After $377K in Undeposited Payments Found in Manager’s Desk (p 38)
  54. Mere Pendency of Proceedings Deprives Court of Jurisdiction in Jail Collect Call Case; Attorney Fee (p 38)
  55. California’s Sex-Offender Internet Site Gets 14 Million Hits In First Four Days (p 39)
  56. Florida's Law Libraries Provide Adequate Access to Courts Under State's Constitution (p 39)
  57. Besmirched California Prison Doctors Sue To Block Higher Qualification Standards (p 39)
  58. News in Brief: (p 40)
  59. News in Brief (p 42)
  60. Ninth Circuit: Kicking Shackled Prisoner In Genitals Is Cruel And Unusual Punishment (p 44)

Prison Health Services: As Health Care in Jails Goes Private, 10 Days Can Be a Death Sentence

By Paul Von Zielbauer; Joseph Plambeck contributed reporting for this article.

Brian Tetrault was 44 when he was led into a dim county jail cell in upstate New York in 2001, charged with taking some skis and other items from his ex-wife’s home. A former nuclear scientist who had struggled ...

Fatal Justice: The New Maryland

It's a state already steeped in heritage--birthplace of The Star Spangled Banner, home to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and site of the bloody Civil War battle at Antietam. But now Maryland is raising a new legacy: a system of dangerous and deadly prisons.

Much of the scrutiny directed ...

From the Editor

We would like to apologize to readers for the delay in issues between the May and June, 2005 issues. A combination of factors have resulted in issues getting delayed. The first was a trial in Florida against the Florida Department of Corrections over the censorship of PLN and a policy ...

Arbitrary Draconian Restrictions on Texas Parolees

by Matthew T. Clarke

Texas parolees have been subjected to a number of draconian measures not necessarily related to their conviction. For instance, parolees who were not convicted of sex offenses have been made to register as sex offenders and take sex offender therapy, parolees with any history of sex ...

Former Connecticut Governor Rowland Pleads Guilty to Corruption Charges in Juvenile Prison Kickback Scheme

Former Connecticut Governor Rowland Pleads Guilty to
Corruption Charges in Juvenile Prison Kickback Scheme

by Matthew T. Clarke

In December 2004, John G. Rowland, 47, former governor of Connecticut, pleaded guilty in federal court to accepting over $100,000 in bribes as part of a conspiracy by government officials. He faced ...

Pennsylvania Jail Prisoner Settles Use-Of-Force Suit For $15,000

On January 3, 2005, a Pennsylvania prisoner settled his claims of excessive use of force and deliberate indifference against Lackawanna County Prison officials for $15,000.

According to the complaint, plaintiff Mario Ludovici was arrested on October 13, 2001, on a warrant for unpaid child support and taken to the county ...

$600,000 Settlement In Death Of Unmedicated Wisconsin Prisoner

A lawsuit over the death of a mentally ill epileptic Wisconsin prisoner has settled for $600,000.

Kelvin Brooks, an epileptic state prisoner with a long history of mental illness was imprisoned at Wisconsin's Green Bay Correctional Facility. For unknown reasons Brooks was isolated in the prison's segregation unit and apparently ...

Federal Prisoner Wins Right To Marry, Fees Awarded

A federal prisoner has settled his lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for $175 and permission to marry his fiancée. The court also awarded attorney fees of $21,537.50 in a separate proceeding.

On November 2, 2000, while imprisoned at U.S.P. Lewisburg in Pennsylvania, plaintiff Rodney Smith sought permission to ...

$99,981 In Fees Awarded For Successful Massachusetts Court Access Suit

In a strongly worded opinion chastising Massachusetts officials for over 1itigating a case in which a prisoner's constitutional right of access to courts was clearly violated, a federal district court awarded attorneys' fees and costs of $99,981 to the plaintiff. Plaintiff's counsel, a commercial law firm, had volunteered to represent ...

Prison Health Services: Missed Signals in New York Jails Open Way to Season of Suicides

by Paul Von Zielbauer; Joseph Plambeck contributed reporting for this article.

The warnings were right there in her medical ?le: a childhood of sexual abuse, a diagnosis of manic depression, a suicide attempt at age 13—all noted when Carina Montes arrived at Rikers Island in September 2002.

But none of ...

Settlements Reached In Alabama Women Prisoners' Class-Action Suit

by Matthew T. Clarke

On August 23, 2004, U. S. District Judge Myron Thompson signed a settlement order in a class-action civil-rights lawsuit brought by prisoners at three Alabama Department of Corrections women's prisons challenging their conditions of confinement. The suit focused on basic human needs such as adequate living ...

CCA Finally Loses Contract at Mismanaged Tulsa Jail

by Matthew T. Clarke

For years the Sheriff of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, Stanley Glanz, has been telling anyone who would listen that he, not CCA, should be running the county jail. Now, after five years of CCA mismanagement, he may finally get his chance.

The saga started in the late ...

U.S. Supreme Court: Michigan Appellate Attorneys Have

U.S. Supreme Court: Michigan Appellate Attorneys Have No Third Party Standing To Sue For Rights Of Future Unrepresented Prisoners

by John E. Dannenberg

The U.S. Supreme Court, sidestepping the important question of the constitutionality of a Michigan state law that prohibited appointment of appellate counsel for indigent defendants who took ...

New Hampshire Prisoner's Due Process Suit Nets $54,000 in Fees and Damages

A New Hampshire federal district court has awarded a prisoner $20,503 in nominal and punitive damages in a civil rights action alleging Fourteenth Amendment violations. The Court further awarded $31,000 in attorney's fees and $3,900 in costs to the prisoner's attorney.

While imprisoned at New Hampshire's Hillsborough County Department of ...

$800,000 Awarded to Wrongly Convicted Tennessee Man

After maintaining his innocence for 22 years, Clark McMillan was released from prison after DNA evidence cleared him of raping a 16 year-old in 1980. McMillan was released from a Tennessee prison in 2002 after DNA testing revealed a former Memphis resident serving time in Texas for rape had committed ...

Texas Attorney General Clarifies Confiscation Law Governing Prisoner Art Sales

Texas prisoners can sell artwork over the internet and retain the proceeds as long as the value is not increased because of their notoriety, an opinion by Attorney General Greg Abbott has confirmed.

The Attorney General's January 25, 2005, opinion was in response to a judicial inquiry by state Representative ...

National Prison Reform Commission Started

Chaired by former Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and former U.S. Circuit Judge John Gibbons, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons opened shop in March, 2005 and has held two of four scheduled public hearings -- the first in April in Tampa, Florida and the second in July ...

Michigan Guard Who Procured Hit On Prisoner Must Pay $200,000 Damages

by Marvin Mentor


A Michigan federal jury returned verdicts of $75,000 in compensatory damages and $125,000 in punitive damages against a Michigan state prison guard who paid one prisoner six cigarettes to viciously pummel another.
Michigan prisoner Barton Allen, serving a life sentence for first degree murder, was attacked while ...

Fifth Circuit Upholds $5,000 Excessive Force Verdict Against Wackenhut Guard

In an unpublished opinion, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury verdict finding that a prison guard used excessive force against a prisoner and awarding $5,000 in damages.

Mississippi prisoner Thomas Unger sued Wackenhut (now Geo Corporation), various supervisory officials and guard Reginald Blanchard, alleging that he was ...

New York Senator Returned To Jail After Illegal Release

By Michael Rigby

Most people will accept that certain perks are available to a state’s top lawmakers. What is unacceptable, however, is that these perks often continue even after the public trust has been violated. The case of former New York Senator Guy Velella, a once powerful Republican convicted of ...

PREA Data Collection Efforts Underway

Efforts to implement the data collection requirements of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) have begun, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report.

Signed into law by President George W. Bush on September 4, 2003, the Prison Rape Elimination Act [Public Law 108-79] calls for a wide range ...

Another CCA Prison in Oklahoma, Another Riot

by Matthew T. Clarke

On March 22, 2005, a riot at a private prison run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) near Cushing, Oklahoma resulted in the death of one prisoner and injuries to fifteen others, one of them critically. No guards or other CCA employees were injured.

Adam Gene ...

Army Prison Ban On PLN Containing Postage-Stamp-Exchange Ad Is Enjoined, But Ban On Internet Mail Up

Army Prison Ban On PLN Containing Postage-Stamp-Exchange Ad Is Enjoined, But Ban On Internet Mail Upheld


by John E. Dannenberg


The U.S. District Court (D. KS) enjoined Ft. Leavenworth prison officials from banning Prison Legal News issues carrying advertisements from The Greenback Exchange that offered to send Greenback's information packet ...

California Prison Employee Paid $500,000 To Settle Whistleblower Retaliation Suit

The California Department of Cor¬rections (CDC) settled an employee whistleblower retaliation suit for $500,000 in October, 2004. CDC admitted it had additionally spent $300,000 in legal fees fighting the claim.

Richard Krupp, formerly the chief of CDC’s Personnel Automation Section, after being rebuffed by his supervisors on his plan to ...

Federal Immigration Detainee Taken Off Life Support Without Family's Consent

by John E. Dannenberg

A 69 year-old Mexican national, who suffered a heart attack at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Los Angeles and was put on life support at White Memorial Medical Center, was taken off life support three days later without noti¬fication to or consent of his ...

Supreme Court Finds Ohio Supermax Placement Policy Constitutional

By Bob Williams

The United States Supreme Court has found prisoners possess a liberty interest in avoiding supermax placement but ruled Ohio’s new classification policy for placing and retaining prisoners in the state’s supermax is constitutional as written. Relief for due process violations under the former written and unwritten policies ...

Brain Dead California Prisoner Guarded Around The Clock

A California parole violator, who was declared brain dead from being shot in the head by a guard at 6,100 bed Wasco State Prison during a lounge-area fight, was guarded at a nearby Bakersfield hospital at a cost of $1,056/day in overtime. $30,000 later, after much adverse publicity, the prisoner ...

California Prison Guard Gets Time For Setting Up Prisoner Beating

On February 17, 2005, a former guard at Salinas Valley State Prison (SVSP), who set up a gang -initiated attack on a prisoner, was sentenced in Monterey Superior Court to two years and eight months in state prison.
On November 17, 2004, former guard Leon Holston took a deal for ...

Report: Federal Prison Guards Sexually Abuse Prisoners With Near Impunity

By Michael Rigby

Federal prison guards and other employees who have sex with prisoners are rarely prosecuted, and when convictions do result the punishment is often trivial, according to a report by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG). The April 2005 report, Deterring Staff Sexual Abuse of Federal ...

Washington DOC Settles Contempt Action For $500,000; Money To Fund Patient Advocate

The Washington Department of Corrections has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a contempt action stemming from alleged violations of a consent decree governing medical care at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW). Pending approval by the court, roughly half of the money will be used to pay attorneys' ...

Los Angeles County Settles Parolee's Overdetention Suit For $80,000

Los Angeles County paid $80,000 to settle a California parolee's
overdetention suit that alleged failure to process release information for one week.

On June 4, 2001, William Green was arrested by his parole agent on a violation for failing to register as a sex offender. On July 6, 2001, he ...

Alabama Workers' Comp Act No Bar to Psychological Torts

The Alabama Court of Appeals held that Alabama's Workers' Compensation Act is not an exclusive remedy for tort claims of employees alleging purely psychological injuries.

Three female employees of Correctional Medical Services, Inc. (CMS) brought suit against CMS employees of the Alabama Department of Corrections and others, for an incident ...

Wackenhut Settles Suit Over Premature Birth for $98,000

On August 12, 2004, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, now known as GEO Group, Inc., settled a suit alleging that inadequate medical care at a 640-bed Wackenhut-run jail caused a prisoner to give birth prematurely.

Melissa Villarreal, 32, a former prisoner at the Wackenhut-run jail in downtown San Antonio, was arrested for ...

$15,000 Settlement In Hawaii Voting Rights Suit

By John E. Dannenberg

Dwayne Yoshina, Chief Election Officer of the Hawaii Office of Elections and Genevieve Wong, Honolulu City Clerk agreed to pay $15,000 in damages for disenfranchising 44 prisoners at the Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC) by their failure to provide the prisoners with absentee ballots and to ...

U.S. Supreme Court: State Prisoners May Challenge Unconstitutional Parole Procedures Under § 1983 If Earlier Release Doesn't Necessarily Follow

U.S. Supreme Court: State Prisoners May Challenge
Unconstitutional Parole Procedures Under § 1983
If Earlier Release Doesn't Necessarily Follow

by John E. Dannenberg

The U.S. Supreme Court held that state prisoners attacking the constitutionality of procedures used in either parole-eligibility or parole-suitability proceedings may avoid the state-court exhaustion requirements of ...

42 Alabama AIDS Prison Deaths In Five Years Spurs Major Medical Suit Settlement

By John E. Dannenberg

The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) settled a class action federal civil rights lawsuit brought by Limestone Correctional Facility AIDS-afflicted prisoners who had complained of unconstitutional conditions of medical treatment and confinement that resulted in excessive suffering and a high mortality rate. The settlement implicated performance ...

Prisoners of Love: Good Advice for Those Separated By Walls But United by Love

by Matthew T. Clarke


If you want to know the mechanics of how a Texas prison is run, you should read Behind the Walls by George Antonio Renauld [PLN Aug. 2003, p. 29]. It gives all the details on the inner workings of a large prison system, much as the ...

Maricopa County, Arizona, Settles Wrongful Imprisonment Suit For $1.4 Million

On April 6, 2005, a man falsely imprisoned for a decade on Arizona's death row settled with Maricopa County for $1.4 million.

Ray Krone, once dubbed the snaggletooth" killer, was sentenced to death in 1992 based on testimony that his bite matched a mark found on the victim. He was ...

RLUIPA Upheld by U.S. Supreme Court

by John E. Dannenberg


A unanimous United States Supreme Court held that § 3 of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §2000cc-1(a) (1-2), which proscribes the government from imposing a substantial burden on the religious exercise of incarcerated persons, does not thereby offend ...

Louisiana Prison Writer Free After 44 Years

Award-winning prison journalist and civil rights figure Wilbert Rideau, once described as “the most rehabilitated prisoner in America,” is free after spending more than four decades behind bars. Ironically, Rideau’s freedom came not from being exonerated, but from being found guilty a fourth time.

Rideau was a 19-year-old, virtually illiterate, ...

Jury Trial in Prison Violates Oregon Constitution

The Oregon Supreme Court held that conducting a prisoner's jury trial within a prison violates the impartial jury guarantee of the Oregon Constitution.

Gary Cavan, a prisoner at the Snake River Correctional Institution (SRCI) was charged with several crimes stemming from his assault of an SRCI guard. Based on [Cavan's] ...

Suit Over Rape of Prisoner By TDCJ Employee Settled for $118,318.56 and Beach Property

By Matthew T. Clarke

On November 19, 2004, a Texas prisoner who was raped by a Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) guard settled his suit against the guard and TDCJ for a total of $118,318.56 and the guard’s beach property.

Nathan Essary, 22, a Texas state prisoner of slight ...

Supreme Court Decision Orders Release of 920 Mariel Cubans; ICE: Dumps them In the Streets Without Aid

Supreme Court Decision Orders Release of 920 Mariel Cubans;
ICE: Dumps them In the Streets Without Aid

By Mark Wilson

In a 7-to-2 decision, the United States Supreme Court expanded upon its earlier decision in Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001), holding that aliens who are ordered removed and ...

Massachusetts Law, Not PLRA, Applies to Attorneys Fee Award in State Court § 1983 Action for Native

Massachusetts Law, Not PLRA, Applies to Attorneys Fee Award in State Court § 1983 Action for Native American Rights

A Massachusetts Superior Court has held that the determination of an appropriate attorney's fee in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Action is governed by Massachusetts common law and practice and not ...

California Guard Wins $10 Million Default Judgment Against Assaultive Prisoners

A guard at California State Prison Los Angeles (CSP-LA) in Lancaster, who was allegedly injured by two prisoners, was awarded a $10,253,792.57 default judgment against them in Los Angeles Superior Court on March 17, 2005.

Guard Demont Blunt, 25, was repeatedly kicked in the head on April 2, 2004 when ...

$1 Million L.A. County Jail Rape Award Overturned

by Marvin Mentor

The California Court of Appeal, in an unpublished opinion, reversed a Los Angeles (L.A.) County jury verdict that had awarded $1 million in damages to a jail detainee who was brutally beaten and raped in his L. A. County Jail module while waiting twenty hours to be ...

Colorado Teenagers Raped By Guards Settle For $165,000 Each

In August 2004, two teenage girls raped by guards at a Colorado juvenile prison settled their lawsuits for $165,000 apiece. Both girls had been imprisoned at the Youthful Offender System (YOS), which is operated by the Colorado Department of Corrections. Their lawsuits were identical and involved the same defendants. The ...

Former Wackenhut Guard Awarded $600,000 For Wrongful Termination

A federal jury in Fresno, California, has awarded $600,000 to a former guard at the Taft Correctional.Institution (TCI) for wrongful termination. TCI is a private prison operated by the Geo Group, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corporation [see PLN, June 2004, p.16]. TCI houses federal prisoners.

John Elliot, who began working as ...

Arizona Boot Camp Director Convicted In Teen’s Death

On January 3, 2005, the founder of a tough-love boot camp in Arizona was convicted of reckless manslaughter in the 2001 death of a 14-year-old camper who collapsed under the relentless desert sun. On May 24, 2005, Long was sentenced to six years in prison for his role in the ...

Tennessee Public Records Act Requires Delivery Of Records To Prisoners

The Tennessee Court of Appeals has held that the state's Public Records Act requires a District Attorney General not only to make public records available, but to copy and deliver records requested by prisoners.
Jaxie Raymond Jones, a Tennessee state prisoner in the Northeast Correctional Complex, filed a petition against ...

Court Holds Temperatures on Florida's Death Row Constitutional; Class Action Exhaustion Explained

By David M. Reutter

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a Florida District Court's order denying that prisoners' cell temperatures on Florida's death row constitute cruel and unusual punishment. This civil rights action was filed by Jim E. Chandler and William Kelley, prisoners on death row at Union Correctional ...

Staph Infections Kill Women Prisoners In Pennsylvania; Coroner’s Office Raided

By Michael Rigby

Three female prisoners have died after contracting a deadly strain of Staph infection while confined in Pennsylvania jails. All of the deaths occurred in March 2005. Two of the women, originally said to have inhaled toxic fumes while cleaning one of the jails, died within hours of ...

Kentucky State Auditor Blasts Prison Industries After $377K in Undeposited Payments Found in Manager’s Desk

by Matthew T. Clarke

It is hard to imagine the surprise of Kentucky Correctional Industries (KCI) employees when they discovered $377,751.86 in undeposited payments in a KCI manager’s desk in April, 2004. As a result of the discovery, Kentucky Department of Corrections (DOC) Commissioner John Rees asked the State Auditor ...

Mere Pendency of Proceedings Deprives Court of Jurisdiction in Jail Collect Call Case; Attorney Fee

Mere Pendency of Proceedings Deprives Court of Jurisdiction in Jail Collect Call Case; Attorney Fee Awarded Reversed, Injunction Upheld

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed an award of attorney's fees, holding the mere pendency of proceedings that threatens harm is insufficient to invoke a district court's jurisdiction to ...

California’s Sex-Offender Internet Site Gets 14 Million Hits In First Four Days

California’s new public internet data-base listing 63,000 of 85,000 convicted sex-offenders was put on line December 15, 2004. By that evening, it was too crowded to navigate, receiving 14 million hits in the first four days. This data was previously only available at police stations.

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme ...

Florida's Law Libraries Provide Adequate Access to Courts Under State's Constitution

Florida's Law Libraries Provide Adequate Access to Courts
Under State's Constitution

By David M. Reutter

Florida's First District Court of Appeal has held that Article I, § 21 of the Florida constitution requires the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) to provide more affirmative assistance to prisoners in the preparation and ...

Besmirched California Prison Doctors Sue To Block Higher Qualification Standards

By John E. Dannenberg

California Department of Corrections (CDC) doctors, who have been much maligned in recent scathing federal court reports depicting “horrible” medical care conditions in California’s prisons, made a defensive move on April 29, 2005 by having their union, the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, file a ...

News in Brief:

Alabama: On April 28, 2005, Mario Centobie, 39, was executed after waiving his appeals. In 1998, Centobie, a former Mississippi firefighter who was serving a 40 year sentence at Parchman Prison in Mississippi for kidnapping his estranged wife and 6 year old son, escaped from the prison while being taken ...

News in Brief

News in Brief:

Alabama: On February 2, 2005, Jimmy Toliver, 40, was arrested on criminal trespassing charges after attempting to break into the Bullock County jail in Union Springs. Toliver had crawled under the jail's security fence and was found hiding behind an air conditioning unit at 3 AM. Toliver ...

Ninth Circuit: Kicking Shackled Prisoner In Genitals Is Cruel And Unusual Punishment

When California Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) prisoner Christopher Watts filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against guards J. McKinney and S.J. Steinberg for kicking Watts in the genitals after an unsuccessful interrogation regarding PBSP guards bringing in drugs or knives, the U.S. District Court (N.D. Cal.) ruled that ...