The nation's economy remains fragile, U.S. troops continue to fight a losing war in Afghanistan, North Korea has recently threatened a nuclear attack, and in March 2013 Congress and President Obama failed to reach a compromise to prevent the “sequester,” which mandates deep spending cuts on the federal level. Yet ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 11
Paul Bebeu, Sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona and a former police officer, was a rising Republican star within the state in 2012 – crusading in support of the anti-immigrant legislation SB1070, co-chairing Arizona’s campaign for Mitt Romney’s presidential bid and espousing the so-called family values that appealed to his conservative ...
Welcome to PLN's anniversary issue. This issue marks 23 years and 277 issues since Prison Legal News first began publishing in May 1990. When PLN started, I didn’t think we would last this long or grow as much as we have; I also didn’t think the prison population would double ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 12
For decades, tough-on-crime rhetoric has convinced taxpayers to finance ballooning prison budgets with no questions asked. But the price tag of mass incarceration has so grossly surpassed state corrections budgets that legislators across the country have become adept at paying prison-related costs from other sources, thereby making their prison budgets ...
As we publish our second issue with PLN’s new design, the feedback we have received so far has been overwhelmingly positive, including with respect to our expanded size.
The additional pages are important as they allow us to include even more news and legal content.
I would like to remind ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 15
PLN's March 2013 cover story detailed a long-standing pattern of abuse and corruption in the nation’s largest jail system, operated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD). Some of that misconduct was attributed to LASD Undersheriff Paul K. Tanaka, the right-hand man of Sheriff Leroy “Lee” Baca.
In fact, ...
by M. Alex Johnson and Vidya Rao, NBC News
If you've heard of Clarence Earl Gideon at all, it’s probably because of a movie you had to watch in school. He deserves better, though, because 50 years ago he fundamentally changed the American legal system and your rights if you ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 18
Taking advantage of the lack of available bed space to house parole violators in California jails following the state’s “realignment” initiative, thousands of paroled sex offenders fitted with GPS ankle bracelets have disabled or removed them – with few consequences.
Under Jessica’s Law, sex offenders in California are subject to ...
Non-union membership in the Hawkeye State apparently has its privileges, at least for parole and prison officials in management positions.
Between August 2011 and early 2012, when Iowa’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) ruled in their favor, 18 former prison and parole supervisors who claimed they were improperly laid off ...
Supermax prisons and solitary confinement units are our domestic black sites – hidden places where human beings endure unspeakable punishments, without benefit of due process in any court of law. On the say-so of corrections officials, American prisoners can be placed in conditions of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation for ...
For more than two decades, the Nassau County Jail in East Meadow, New York has lacked accountability in the form of an oversight board. But that lapse may be coming to an end after prisoner advocates filed a lawsuit seeking court intervention.
Since 1990, the Nassau County Jail has failed ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 22
A report that linked oppressive conditions in California prisons to preventable prisoner suicides was suppressed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), while the state tried to convince a federal judge that court oversight was no longer needed in an ongoing class-action lawsuit over deficiencies in mental health ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 24
A lawsuit filed against Clayton County, Georgia and the county’s sheriff, Kem Kimbrough, has prompted human rights organizations and Georgia lawmakers to examine guidelines for the treatment of pregnant women held in jails across the state.
Georgia’s Department of Corrections (GDOC) incarcerates all pregnant state prisoners at the Helms Transitional ...
by Evelyn J. Patterson, Ph.D.
As a scholar of criminology and demography (the study of how and why populations change), I seek to contribute to the discourse on inequality through researching different issues in the demography of incarceration. One astonishing thing that I discovered some time ago was the difference ...
Seventh Circuit Reverses Dismissal of Case Challenging Conditions in Illinois Jail
where Mentally Ill Prisoner Died
On March 20, 2012, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendants in a case claiming inhumane conditions of confinement at a county jail; the ...
by John E. Dannenberg
Even amid a declining prison population, Colorado is paying million of dollars to private prison contractors for unneeded cells in order to protect the economic base of small, rural communities that have become dependent on the jobs that for-profit prisons provide.
With Colorado’s prison population in ...
by Adam Klasfeld, Courthouse News
Reeling from the criticism of its last effort at prison reform, Illinois buried its study of the ineffectiveness of long-term solitary confinement.
As Gov. Pat Quinn struggled to hold onto the seat he acquired from the ousted Rod Blagojevich, his office drew fire for measures ...
After heated hearings and postponement, on December 12, 2012, the Louisiana Public Service Commission (LPSC) voted to lower the cost of phone calls made from Louisiana prisons and jails by cutting the rates of most calls by 25% and prohibiting costly surcharges. [See: PLN, Jan. 2013, p.14; Feb. 2012, p.36]. ...
Prisoners who copy "arguably inflammatory” or “incendiary” passages from the books they check out from a prison library or are allowed to purchase are not entitled to rely on the First Amendment to protect them from disciplinary punishment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held on August ...
In another series of court rulings upholding the use of Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), a prisoner at the federal ADX supermax facility in Florence, Colorado was prohibited from receiving certain publications and communicating with his nieces and nephews.
The federal Bureau of Prisons’ use of SAMs originated in a regulation ...
On March 11, 2013, the Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania (DRNP) filed a lawsuit against John E. Wetzel, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, charging that the confinement of prisoners in Restricted Housing Units (RHUs) amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment” of those diagnosed as “seriously mentally ill.” The ...
A Corrections Grand Jury report released on December 18, 2012 made recommendations to remedy problems in Multnomah County’s jail system, adding to suggestions the Grand Jury had previously made in 2011.
In its most recent report, the Grand Jury noted there was a 121% increase in the number of emergency ...
Jeffrey A. Beard, an almost 40-year old veteran of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, and most recently that state’s Corrections Secretary, was hired by California Governor Jerry Brown in December 2012 to become the new head of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Beard, 65, replaces Matthew Cate, ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 36
A federal lawsuit filed against the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), the union that represents state prison guards, resulted in a $12.5 million damages award in October 2010. The award was reduced by the district court to $4.96 million and the CCPOA appealed, placing $3 million in an escrow ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 38
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) began 2013 with an adverse ruling from the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, after the BOP had spent several years refusing to disclose allegedly confidential information that was, in fact, already public.
In May 2009, Stephen Raher, then a law student ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 38
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals held on May 16, 2012 that a New York district court had incorrectly concluded that a prisoner failed to exhaust his administrative remedies before bringing a religious freedom suit.
Muslim prisoner Neil Johnson was confined at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York ...
Book review by Lisa McElroy
In the Spring of 2003, the phone on Seth Waxman’s desk rang. “Will you accept a call from federal prison?” the caller asked. Waxman sighed. It might have been his fifth prisoner call that day. As the former Solicitor General of the United States and ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 42
by Derek Gilna
Federal prisoner William Harris’ 188-month sentence for assaulting a prison guard was reversed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on May 25, 2012, based on a violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 25(b) “with prejudice.”
Harris, 35, a member of the Salt River-Maricopa Indian Tribe, ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 42
As it turns out, the FBI's annual reports on crime in the United States are only slightly more credible than campaign promises and Big Foot sightings.
An August 2012 investigative analysis by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel found that the overwhelming majority of data published in the FBI’s “Crime in the United ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 43
When Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper announced the closure of the Fort Lyon Correctional Facility in Las Animas, Brent County officials became despondent. The prison was an economic mainstay of the tiny county.
“There’s no question the jobs leaving the community are some of the highest-paying jobs we have,” said County ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 44
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held that an Illinois prison guard violated the First Amendment rights of a prisoner by ordering his dreadlocks to be forcibly shorn. The appellate court further held the guard was not entitled to qualified immunity.
Illinois prison policy allows prisoners “to have any ...
Community corrections centers, also known as halfway houses, receive a great deal of money to help prepare prisoners to reenter society. Unfortunately, according to a recent study in Pennsylvania, the state’s 38 halfway houses with 4,313 beds have not been particularly successful in that mission, as prisoners assigned to the ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 46
On May 22, 2012, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that defendants found liable for civil rights violations had failed to challenge in their initial appeal an order that they were jointly and severally liable for attorney’s fees, and thus had “waived their ability to challenge that order subsequently.” ...
A complaint brought in the Court of Chancery of Delaware to appraise the value of a prison healthcare company inadvertently shed light on the big business of providing contracted correctional services.
Certain shareholders of Just Care, Inc., a privately-held Delaware corporation, filed the complaint to determine the fair value of ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 47
In March 2012, the California Court of Appeal, 4th District, affirmed a lower court’s judgment that reinstated the termination of a former state prison guard, Thomas Norton, who had told a mentally ill female prisoner to hang herself and then pressured another guard to keep him from reporting what had ...
A South Carolina Sheriff has been removed from office following his indictment on criminal charges of misconduct and furnishing contraband to prisoners.
Chesterfield County Sheriff Sanford (“Sam”) Marion Parker, Jr. was suspended by Governor Nikki Haley on March 20, 2013 after the charges were announced by the Attorney General’s Office. ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 49
Secondary education for Utah prisoners are wasting tax dollars and, more importantly, wasting educational resources, according to an August 2012 report by the state’s Legislative Auditor General.
Utah lawmakers wanted to know how efficient and effective are high school education programs offered in the state’s prisons and jails, which help ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 50
The Florida Innocence Commission's final report, presented to the Florida Supreme Court on June 25, 2012, included a number of recommendations to address issues related to wrongful convictions in the Sunshine State.
Due to having one of the highest rates of wrongful convictions in the nation, the Florida Supreme Court ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 51
The California Court of Appeals has held that Penal Code section 3003(f), which limits a parolee convicted of certain offenses from living within 35 miles of the victim or witness to the crime – if, among other conditions, the victim or witness has requested the physical separation – may not ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 52
The Trail of Tears lives on. It still winds its way through dilapidated Native American villages on reservations across the United States that are impoverished, starved of resources and pockmarked by dysfunction and discrimination.
Almost two centuries after indigenous Americans were uprooted from their tribal lands and driven west, the ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 53
The Utah Supreme Court has that the “incarceration exception” to the state’s waiver of sovereign immunity does not apply to a juvenile offender’s placement in an unsecured community-based proctor home.
Sixteen-year-old Dillon Whitney was charged with several crimes and adjudicated a juvenile delinquent. The trial court ordered the Division of ...
From the Capitol to the courtrooms, prosecutors can chart a new path on public safety by championing at both local and state levels one of the biggest ways we can transform our justice system in this generation – sentencing reform.
Right now, the U.S. puts more people in prison and ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 54
On May 30, 2012, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed an Illinois federal district court’s order that imposed a cost bond on an indigent prisoner which the court knew he could not afford, holding that such an order is not one of the tools available for dismissing or discouraging ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 56
As previously reported in PLN, between 2006 and 2009, employees at Oregon’s only women’s prison were charged with sexually abusing more than a dozen female prisoners. [See: PLN, Nov. 2010, p.18; July 2009, p.47]. The abuse continues unabated, with at least five prison staff members accused of sexual misconduct last ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 56
In January 20013, California's Prison Industry Board (PIB) submitted its annual report to the state legislature regarding the activities and financial status of the California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA), the agency it is charged with overseeing. CALPIA operates industry programs that employ approximately 7,000 prisoners annually in “manufacturing, service, and ...
Loaded on
April 15, 2013
published in Prison Legal News
April, 2013, page 58
Maryland: Jerod Pridget, 29, incarcerated at the Western Correctional Institution, died on November 28, 2012 after being severely beaten by another prisoner and transferred to an outside medical facility. Pridget was serving an 18-month sentence; his family said he was “unrecognizable” due to the injuries to his head and face. ...
