by Matt Clarke
There are two criminal justice systems in the United States. One is for people with wealth, fame or influence who can afford to hire top-notch attorneys and public relations firms, who make campaign contributions to sheriffs, legislators and other elected officials, and who enjoy certain privileges due ...
In a November 2009 letter to Governor Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders, California State Auditor Elaine Howle reported that corrections officials had greatly overstated the number of jobs they saved using $1.08 billion in federal stimulus money, claiming they retained thousands of positions that were never in jeopardy.
Faced with an ...
The cover story of this month’s issue of Prison Legal News is no surprise to our readers. The pay-to-stay luxury jails in Southern California first came to my attention over a year ago when a reporter from the Los Angeles Times called to ask me for a comment on the ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 13
In December 2009, McLennan County, Texas commissioners Lester Gibson, Kelly Snell and Joe Mashek admitted that a candidate for the medical director’s position at the McLennan County Jail had previously been sanctioned by the Texas Medical Board. That didn’t stop them from hiring him, though.
A background check of Dr. ...
by John E. Dannenberg
On June 14, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court (USSC) agreed to review orders entered by a three-judge federal district court panel in California that would relieve overcrowding in that state’s prison system by requiring a reduction in its 172,000 prisoner population by 46,000 over the next ...
by David M. Reutter
Prisoners often believe that prison health care personnel are second-rate and incompetent, and likely couldn’t find work in non-correctional settings. The December 2, 2009 resignation of a Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) psychiatrist whose license was revoked lent credence to that belief.
Emanuel John Falcone was ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 16
In April 2009, a federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas awarded $355,000 to Robert Duvall for injuries he suffered when he was denied medical treatment at the Dallas County Jail. Less than three months later, Dallas County settled two similar lawsuits for a ...
by David M. Reutter
With Florida continuing to face budget shortfalls due to the economic crisis, Governor Charlie Crist is looking for ways to slash government spending. However, his efforts are drawing fire from those who question cutting the budget of the Florida Parole Commission (FPC).
When Crist became governor, ...
On December 23, 2009, a federal appeals court upheld the convictions of disbarred defense attorney Lynne Stewart and criticized what it called a “strikingly low sentence” for her offenses, which were related to providing material support in a terrorism conspiracy. [See: PLN, Sept. 2005, p.14; Sept. 2002, p.20].
Judges Robert ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 30, 2009, Catherine S. Evans, a former Dallas state district judge and the newly-appointed ombudsman for the Texas Youth Commission (TYC), resigned after she was indicted on a third-degree felony charge for smuggling a prohibited weapon into a TYC facility. [See: PLN, March 2010, p.28]. ...
The lethal injection protocol adopted by the Kentucky Department of Correction (DOC) was promulgated in violation of the state’s Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Kentucky Supreme Court decided on November 25, 2009.
Kentucky, like most other states that have the death penalty, uses a three-drug lethal injection protocol to carry ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 20
Butler County, Pennsylvania has agreed to settle a medical deliberate indifference lawsuit for $55,000. In April 2006, James Raub was arrested and taken to the Butler County Prison. During the booking process, he told guards and a nurse that he was in pain and wanted to be sent to a ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 22
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has affirmed a $2,501 award to an Arkansas state prisoner who was subjected to retaliation by an Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC) guard.
On June 23, 2007, ADC prisoner Walter Haynes filed a grievance against Sgt. Patrick L. Stephenson, who had ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 22
The Indiana Sex Offender Registration Act (ISRA) can not be applied to offenders who committed their crimes before the statute’s enactment, the Indiana Supreme Court decided on January 6, 2010.
Gary M. Hevner was convicted in 2008 of possessing child pornography after downloading illegal images to his computer. In addition ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 22
According to The Fresno Bee, the number of cases of Valley Fever among California prisoners at the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga nearly doubled from 2008 to 2009. Data reported by prison officials to the Fresno County Public Health Department indicate that 311 prisoners were diagnosed with Valley Fever ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 23
On January 7, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated a condition of supervised release that required a federal defendant to notify probation officials each time he entered into a “significant romantic relationship.” A related condition that required the defendant to inform anyone he was romantically ...
by Matt Clarke
In 2006 Congress enacted the Adam Walsh Act, which requires states to institute stricter monitoring of sex offenders or face losing 10% of their federal crime-prevention grants. Although all states were supposed to comply with the Act by July 2009, as of May 18, 2010 only Ohio, ...
by David M. Reutter
The disparity in compensation awards for prisoners exonerated by DNA evidence in Georgia demonstrates the need for evenhanded compensation laws.
Five wrongly convicted prisoners, Clarence Harrison, Robert Clark, Douglas Echols, Samuel Scott and Willie Otis “Pete” Williams, spent a combined 82 years in Georgia prisons for ...
by David M. Reutter
A federal investigation uncovered a fraudulent scheme at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in which horses were sold to private parties, bypassing required public auctions. Two indictments were handed down that resulted in guilty pleas.
On September 19, 2007, a federal grand jury returned an ...
Nearly six years after his release from prison, Antoine Goff received a measure of belated justice – a $2.9 million settlement for almost 13 years of wrongful incarceration. Goff and his co-plaintiff, John “J.J.” Tennison, had filed complaints under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that alleged numerous Brady violations [Brady v. ...
On November 12, 2009, Canyon County, Idaho agreed to settle a federal class-action suit against the Canyon County Jail (CCJ) that raised a myriad of claims related to unconstitutional conditions.
Filed in March 2009 by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of prisoners at the jail, the lawsuit ...
Melodee Hanes, the live-in girlfriend of U.S. Senator Max Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, has received a high-level political appointment with the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Hanes’ new job at the DOJ comes on the heels of a brewing scandal concerning her nomination for U.S. Attorney for Montana. ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 28
In December 2009, the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice released a report entitled HIV in Prisons, 2007-08. The report indicates that while the number of prisoners with HIV increased in some states and decreased in others, overall the number of HIV-positive prisoners in the U.S. ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 30
In October 2009, the South Carolina Department of Corrections (DOC) paid $47,500 to settle a survivorship suit related to a fatal stabbing.
Justin Bregenzer, 22, a DOC prisoner, was stabbed to death by another prisoner in July 2005 at the Lieber Correctional Institution. Bregenzer’s mother, Sandra Carter, filed a survivorship ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 30
In December 2009, the Board of San Joaquin County, California approved a $600,000 settlement to resolve a federal lawsuit filed by the family of a 71-year-old man who died of a heart attack following his release from jail.
On March 4, 2006, Guillermo Davila was arrested by Tracy City Police ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 30
Prison Health Services (PHS), a private for-profit company that provides medical care to prisoners, has agreed to pay $1.5 million to the family of a man who died at a Virginia jail, with the sheriff’s office paying another $100,000.
Joseph Combs, 57, a Vietnam veteran who suffered from bipolar disorder, ...
On June 7, 2010, Prison Legal News announced that it had settled a federal censorship suit against Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison company.
PLN filed the lawsuit in September 2009, claiming that CCA’s Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona only allowed prisoners to order books ...
by Matt Clarke
In an attempt to bridge a budget shortfall, the Austrian Justice Ministry has set up call centers in prisons and con-tracted them out to private companies that might otherwise outsource the work overseas. The move has prompted criticism about prisoners handling private customer information.
Austrian prison officials ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 7, 2009, three private prison guards were convicted of charges involving the unjustified beating of a New York prisoner in 2007. [See: PLN, Sept. 2009, p.50; July 2009, p.50]. A fourth guard was convicted of related charges in January 2010.
Rex Egurido, 28, a Nigerian ...
Santa Clara County, California – where local law enforcement authorities have policies against cooperating fully with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in terms of enforcing immigration laws – has turned a blind eye to its pro-immigration values and contracted with federal officials to incarcerate immigrant detainees.
The decision to go ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 34
In November 2009, the New Jersey Department of Corrections (DOC) settled a lawsuit brought under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). The suit, filed by the ACLU on behalf of a New Jersey state prisoner, alleged the DOC had violated RLUIPA by refusing to let prisoners preach. ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 4, 2009, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that a state prisoner who had been erroneously released through no fault of his own, and who had not violated any of the conditions of his release, was entitled to credit against his sentence for the ...
On November 4, 2005, Earl Krugel was killed while exercising on the recreation yard at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Phoenix, Arizona, a medium-security facility.
Krugel, an activist for the Jewish Defense League, had been prosecuted and convicted for his role in a plot to bomb a California mosque ...
The parties to a taxpayer lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, which alleges that conditions in Sacramento County’s juvenile detention facilities violate state statutory, constitutional and regulatory laws, reached a partial settlement and signed a stipulated consent decree in December 2009.
Plaintiff David Porter, a resident of Sacramento County, California, ...
Seeking to cut costs in the face of a recession that has forced many states to reconsider their criminal justice priorities, Oregon officials have signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), under which illegal immigrants who waive their right to ...
“I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”
– Frederick Douglass
On the evening of February 25, 2010, participants at the Fourth World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Geneva, Switzerland had assembled from all over the globe for a dramatic Voices of Victims ...
by David M. Reutter
In February 2009, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of summary judgment to a Correctional Medical Services (CMS) nurse in a lawsuit that accused her of failing to properly treat a Michigan prisoner for heat sickness, which left him a quadriplegic.
On July ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 41
A woman who was sexually assaulted at a jail in Monroe County, Wisconsin has received $750,000 as part of a settlement in a federal civil rights case.
While awaiting trial on charges of felony battery of a police officer, Sherry Calhoun was repeatedly forced to perform oral sex on Lt. ...
On February 4, 2010, in a class-action suit brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by eight plaintiffs seeking to represent a class of California state prisoners serving life sentences with possibility of parole, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence K. Karlton issued two significant orders.
The first order granted the plaintiffs’ ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 42
On July 16, 2009, a federal jury awarded $261,000 to a former Arkansas prisoner who was sodomized and forced to perform oral sex on a guard.
While incarcerated at the Varner Supermax Unit, Jason D. Palton was terrorized by Arkansas Dept. of Correction guard Antonio Remley. On four occasions in ...
The authors of a study published in November 2009, which was partially funded by the Emory Center for AIDS Research, reported that the number of HIV/AIDS cases involving releasees from prisons and jails in the U.S. decreased by nearly 30% between 1997 and 2006.
More specifically, the authors found that ...
In 2009, to expedite DWI arrests, the Houston Police Department sent seven officers to Lone Star College to be trained as certified phlebotomists. A phlebotomist is a qualified medical technician who draws a person’s blood. During the course of the officers’ clinical training, they practiced on prisoners in the psychiatric ...
by Matt Clarke
On December 18, 2009, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in a federal class-action suit brought by illegal immigrants arrested in sweeps following the 9/11 attacks and incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in New York City. The Court of Appeals affirmed the ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 5, 2010, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the Sheriff of Bristol County could not charge fees for certain jail services.
In 2002, prisoners at the Bristol County House of Correction and Jail in Dartmouth, Massachusetts filed a complaint in state Superior Court ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 18, 2010, a New York federal judge sentenced Bernard “Bernie” Kerik, 54, to four years in federal prison after Kerik pleaded guilty to five counts of making false statements to federal agents, two counts of tax fraud and one count of making a false statement ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 5, 2010, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Michigan district court’s denial of Eleventh Amendment immunity for a claim involving both a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12131, et seq., and the Equal Protection Clause of the ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 49
Two former DeKalb County, Georgia officials have been sentenced to federal prison for their involvement in a criminal charge-fixing scheme.
In 2008, an unidentified defendant arrested on a drug offense was told by DeKalb County pretrial officer Keith C. Hughes and probation officer Natalie Nicole Dunn that he could get ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Prison Legal News
July, 2010, page 50
Australia: In May 2010, guards at the Mobilong prison in South Australia discovered a fake gun made of matchsticks. Prison staff searched an unnamed prisoner and found the faux weapon after they noticed him behaving suspiciously. Authorities described the matchstick gun as highly realistic; it was apparently made in the ...
