By Andrew Shapiro
During Congress's annual open season on criminals, few lawmakers are eager to defend the rights of the accused, let alone the convicted. So it was particularly refreshing this year to see a proposal in an alternative crime bill submitted by Representative Craig Washington that would have guaranteed ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 2
Albert Sullivan is an Illinois state prisoner forcibly drugged against his will for the past five years. Sullivan filed suit under § 1983 claiming that he has a due process right to stop taking the drugs long enough to prove he does not need them. He also challenged the Illinois ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 2
The Lifers' Group, Inc. of Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk, succeeded in providing all of the nearly 1,300 prisoners there the opportunity to register and vote in the 1993 November General Election. The group's leaders presented a petition to the Norfolk Town Clerk with the requisite number of certifiable signatures ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 3
In 1976 prisoners at the Indiana State Reformatory in Pendleton, IN filed suit challenging the conditions at the prison. In 1977 the parties entered into a consent decree settling the suit. With respect to legal mail the decree provided that it would not be opened, read, censored or copied and ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 3
Dennis Waldon is an Oklahoma state prisoner. He was infracted and punished in a prison disciplinary hearing resulting in the loss of one hundred days of good time credits. Waldon filed a writ of habeas corpus and/or mandamus in the Alfalfa County district court claiming that prison officials had not ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 4
Oscar Bean is a Missouri state prisoner. He filed suit claiming he was denied due process at a disciplinary hearing accusing him of assault. He sought declaratory relief, damages and attorneys fees.
The district court granted the defendants' motion to stay Bean's suit for 90 days pending the exhaustion of ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 4
Paul Gibbs is a Michigan state prisoner and jailhouse lawyer. He was placed in segregation in late 1990 for possessing contraband. On April 2, 1991, he was reclassified back to the general population. Due to a lack of bed space he remained in segregation. On April 8, 1991, he allegedly ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 5
Larry Williams was a prisoner in the Poinsett County, AR, jail. He filed suit challenging various conditions at the jail as being unconstitutional and that the sheriff threatened him in an attempt to prevent him from pursuing the suit. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court ruled in favor of ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 5
This case deals with a class action suit filed by Arizona state prisoners. They claimed that Arizona prison officials denied them access to the courts by enacting policies that unduly abridged their ability to file and litigate court actions. The district court ruled in the prisoners' favor on all counts. ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 6
Robert Nicholson is a Rhode Island state prisoner. In 1988 he told prison officials and state police investigators that he had been assaulted by two prison guards. His complaint was later investigated by the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ concluded that there was insufficient evidence upon which ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 6
Rick Petrick is an Oklahoma state prisoner. The sentence he is serving in Oklahoma was enhanced as a result of prior convictions from Minnesota and North Dakota. While confined at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary (OSP) he sought to bring collateral attacks against the out of state convictions. The OSP law ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 7
Milton Griffin-El is a Missouri state prisoner. He filed suit against MCI Telecommunications Corporation and state prison officials over the phone company's practice of announcing to persons called by prisoners that the calls originated from a prison. The court upheld MCI's practice of paying it's 25% commission to the Missouri ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 7
Robert Warner was convicted of drunk driving in New York state and sentenced to three years probation. One of the probation conditions was that he attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Warner is an atheist and objects to compulsory attendance of AA meetings because of AA's emphasis on god and ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 7
A man visiting his brother in jail was awarded damages both for battery and for violation of his civil rights, based on a guard's attack on him and making of racially derogatory remarks. On appeal, the Minnesota state appeals court ruled that because the racial slurs were coupled with the ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 8
Charles Cashaw was a Washington state prisoner. He filed a Personal Restraint Petition (PRP, a state habeas petition) challenging the actions of the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (ISRB) in setting a minimum prison term to coincide with his court imposed maximum sentence. The court of appeals had granted Cashaw's PRP ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 8
Ronald Davidson is a New York state prisoner. He filed suit claiming that a prison guard had destroyed his legal materials after they had an altercation. The case went to trial. The guard's attorney, from the state's Attorney General's office, sought to admit evidence to the jury that Davidson had ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 8
In a class action suit, Arizona state prisoners challenged the lack of access for mobility impaired prisoners to bathrooms, showers and cells, delays in receiving medical devices and hearing aids and violations of the Rehabilitation Act.
The court found that the Arizona DOC houses 68 prisoners confined to wheelchairs or ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 9
On December 13, 1993, lawyers from the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, together with Vermont attorneyMitchell Pearl of Langrock, Sperry and Wool, filed a class action lawsuit against the State of Vermont on behalf of all Vermont prisoners. Filed in federal district court in Burlington, the ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 9
Florida has built 10,729 new prison beds in the past five years yet has been unable to keep up with its growing prison population. In May of 1993 the Florida legislature passed the Safe Streets Initiative which has the goal of reducing prison overcrowding to ensure that violent and repeat ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 9
Ronald Brewer is an Iowa state prisoner. He suffers from coronary artery disease. Employees of Correctional Medical Services (CMS), a contractor with the Iowa DOC, prescribed medicine for Brewer's illness but the treating doctor made an error in the dosage. Brewer filed suit claiming that he was denied the correct ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 10
As reported in the December, 1993, issue of PLN the Washington state supreme court upheld the provisions of the Community Protection Act which mandates indefinite confinement of persons deemed to be "sexual predators" until such time as they are "cured." On January 25, 1994, nine prisoners confined under this law ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 10
While this is not a prison case we are reporting it because it is a Supreme Court ruling affecting qualified immunity defenses. Qualified immunity allows government officials to escape liability for money damages, even when they violate constitutional rights, as long as the right violated was not "clearly established" at ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 10
Khalid Alexander is a Nevada state prisoner. He tried to file suit and requested in forma pauperis status in order to proceed without paying the normally required filing fees. The Nevada district court has a policy of requiring prisoners to pay a partial filing fee based on either the value ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 11
According to the Intelligence Operations Bulletin, published by the California Attorney General's office, the California DOC's policy of trying to remove prisoners from their "negative" (i.e. city) environment is contributing to the spread of gang membership in rural areas.
Cited as an example was the Los Angeles Court policy which, ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 11
On January 20, 1994, New Jersey governor Christie Whitman renewed a 12 year old "emergency" declaration that forces counties to keep more than 3,600 state prisoners in their jails and accept the state's payment rate. As earlier reported in PLN the New Jersey state supreme court had imposed an April ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 11
The January 5, 1994, issue of the New York Times reported that two New York state DOC guards, Korey Gordon and Edward Sharrow, had been fired after they were caught on video tape brutally beating prisoner Jason McDade. McDade was handcuffed and not resisting when the guards struck him on ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 11
Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a study to determine if the growing use of mandatory minimum sentences was causing overcrowding in the federal prison system. The study, produced by former Deputy Attorney General Philip Heyman, the BOP and selected U.S. Attorneys, found that 16,316 or 21.5% of federal prisoners have ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 12
Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR) is a non-profit organization dedicated to stopping the all too common practice of sexual assaults within prisons and jails. SPR has recently received numerous media requests where television programs, magazines and journalists are seeking prison rape survivors to interview for news stories. If you are a ...
By Dan Cahill
Justice Watch (J.W.) is a grass roots organization that supports prisoners, their families, and all who work for humane conditions until such time as prisons no longer mirror a society based on classism and racism.
J.W. organizes trips to Ohio and Kentucky prisons to help maintain ties ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 12
John Brewer is an Ohio state prisoner. While held at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) in Lucasville he was infracted for stabbing another prisoner. At his disciplinary hearing he was found guilty of aggravated assault based on statements by confidential informants. The finding was upheld on appeal by the ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 12
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), citing conditions such as maggot-infested cells, racially segregated holding cells, fire hazards and a high number of jail suicides, has ordered the closing of jails in four Mississippi counties, Neshoba County, Sunflower County, Lauderdale and Jones County.
The DOJ also cited more than a ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 12
Allain Norman was a detainee in the Norfolk County jail in Virginia. While being processed into custody he asked a trusty for a drag off his cigarette. As soon as he began to smoke, jail deputy Otis Taylor ran down the hallway and swung a heavy set of brass keys ...
Ask The Media if Crime Pays, Then Who's Footing the Bill?
By Dan Pens
A recent survey by the Center for Media and Public Affairs shows that the three major networks aired more than twice as many crime stories last year as in 1992--even though the crime rate remained virtually ...
By Mark Merin
Prisoners who have worked for the California Prison Industries Authority ("PIA") have filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court in Sacramento to obtain minimum wage for their work (now $4.25 per hour) instead of the pittance they now receive. If this case is successful and ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 13
Bob Conklin, the chief of corrections for Chelan County, WA. was arrested on child molestation charges in January, 1994. Since January 13, 1994, he has been held in protective custody in the King County jail, unable to post bond. Prosecutors claim that the 50 year old Conklin molested five teenage ...
By Paul Wright
Many people have the mistaken impression that slavery was outlawed or abolished in the United States after the civil war by the passage of the 13th amendment. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The 13th amendment reads: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crimes ...
By Anthony Sciarrino
With all the attention that the media has lavished on our national "drug problem," and the painfully slow growth of our economy, it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S., Federal Prison Industries, Inc. (FPI). ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 16
UK The British government began a pilot study to set up a genetic DNA database of convicted criminals. Legislation pending in Parliament would expand police powers to take DNA samples from saliva and hair samples. A UK official was quoted as saying: "We will bring the full force of modern ...
From the Editor
by Paul Wright
Welcome to another issue of PLN. This issue is kind of special. It marks the 4th anniversary of PLN, that's right, 48 consecutive issues! Our first issue appeared in May of 1990. For the first couple of issues it was kind of hit and ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 18
On March 10, 1994, guerrilla fighters of the Islamic front attacked the Tazult prison in the rugged Aures mountains of Algeria. Four guards were wounded and seven kidnapped during the attack which lead to at least 400 prisoners escaping. During the attack one guard and five guerrillas were killed.
Government ...
Loaded on
May 15, 1994
published in Prison Legal News
May, 1994, page 18
On February 20, 1994, Chilean prison officials transferred 48 political prisoners, members of the anarchist Lautaro movement and the Marxist Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez (FPMR), to a recently completed control unit (CU) built within the old penitentiary of Santiago. A total of 200 political prisoners who have been arrested during ...
by John Perrotti
Subpoena George Bush, by Aaron Caleb with Douglas Slaton, is the story of former Lucasville 14 member Richard Armstrong. For those unfamiliar with the Lucasville 14, they were fourteen prisoners confined at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, who, relying upon the Helsinki Agreement accord, renounced ...
I received a Denver Post article last week with the latest on Florence. The BOP says that the high security prison will open in February. The administrative Maximum prison (AKA "supermax") will open in the "spring or summer." The only Marion prisoners we expect to be sent to High Security ...
