Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 1
On June 20, 1995, the supreme court issued its five to four ruling in Sandin v. Conner. The ruling appears to be the most devastating legal setback prisoners have suffered in the Supreme Court since Turner v. Safley was decided in 1987. In doing so the court abandoned, without specifically ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 3
One prisoner publication hailed it as "A Moral Victory for Prisoners." The headline in a correctional trade magazine proclaimed "State Wins Pelican Bay Suit." Interpreting the 345-page Madrid v. Gomez opinion is difficult at best, and as shown by the contrasting headlines above, a reader's interpretation can easily be swayed ...
By Paul Wright
In the March, 1995, issue of PLN I gave a rundown on most of the anti-prisoner and defendant legislation then pending in the legislature. After we had gone to press for that issue Ida Ballasiotes, the rabid chair of the House Acorrections committee (See PLN, March, 1995,) ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 13
District courts reviewing a plaintiff's petition to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP) must first review the complaints and decide whether they are legally or factually frivolous before they can demand partial payment of the filing fees. Bonnie McCaslin, a Nebraska state prisoner, filed nineteen lawsuits simultaneously and requested IFP status ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 14
The tenth circuit has approved a process whereby district courts conduct hearings to develop the record and determine whether there is any legal or factual basis to claims brought by pro se prisoner litigants. See: Martinez v. Aaron, 570 F.2d 317 (10th Cir. 1978). In this ruling the court specifically ...
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a lower court decision that denied relief to an alien inmate convicted of an aggravated felony who claimed the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was not taking steps to give him an expedited deportation hearing. The decision in Garcia v. ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 14
The court of appeals for the eighth circuit has held that the affirmative defense of qualified immunity is available to government officials sued under the Rehabilitation Act (RA), 29 U.S.C. '794(a). McKinley Lue is a blind Missouri state prisoner who filed suit claiming he was given inadequate medical care and ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 15
The court of appeals for the second circuit has reaffirmed that trial courts deny pro se litigants a fair trial when litigants are shackled before the Jury and no hearing on the need for restraints is held. Ronald Davidson is a New York state prisoner who sued prison officials for ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 15
The ninth circuit has held that prisoners have a due process liberty interest in accurate and reliable rehabilitation reports. In 1972 Idaho created the ARider Program@ whereby convicted felons were sent to prison to be evaluated for potential release on probation, the sentencing court retained jurisdiction for a 120-180 day ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 16
In a lengthy ruling a district court in Iowa gave an extensive discussion of the history of the eighth amendment and numerous cases regarding its application to medical neglect cases. This case is useful not so much for the facts or issues presented in the underlying case but because of ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 17
A district court has reaffirmed the long-standing principle that the censorship of outgoing prisoner mail rarely implicates prison security interests. Donald Gee, a Wyoming state prisoner, wrote a letter to his brother about his conditions of confinement, that he was being retaliated against by prison officials and that he might ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 17
Pretrial detainees and convicted prisoners held in the Kern County, CA jail filed a class action suit challenging the jail's use of padded safety cells for violent and suicidal prisoners and other jail conditions. The district court held that the safety cells, consisting of bare cells with no furniture and ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 17
Pretrial detainees, who have not been convicted of any crimes, may not be punished in any manner. This includes housing them in jail conditions that could be construed as punitive. Dale Miller filed suit over conditions at the Cook County (Chicago) Jail. He claimed that jail cells lacked adequate ventilation ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 18
The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has affirmed a lower court ruling denying prison officials qualified immunity from money damages for exposing a prisoner to Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS). George Weaver, a Nebraska state prisoner, was placed in a cell with a heavy smoker. He complained to prison ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 19
The Oregon DOC has announced plans to ban smoking in all its facilities by October 1, 1995. The ban will be implemented in a four phase plan which gradually limits, then eliminates, the areas in which prisoners may smoke. The DOC will offer smokers educational material and classes on how ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 19
The court of appeals for the eighth circuit has held that a district court evidentiary hearing cannot serve as a substitute for a full trial, doing so violates a prisoner's seventh amendment right to a jury trial. Harold Hobbs, an Arkansas state prisoner, was held in solitary confinement under orders ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 20
A district court in Illinois has held that the fear a prisoner experiences when attacked by another prisoner, in the absence of any physical injury, is sufficient injury to state a claim for compensatory damages under section 1983. Anthony Jones is an Illinois state prisoner in protective custody. He claimed ...
From the Editor
By Paul Wright
Welcome to another issue of PLN. Readers may recall that in the July, 1994, issue we ran an article concerning the suit filed by Ed Mead (PLN's former co-editor) and myself against the Washington state parole board. After being released from prison in 1993 ...
Loaded on
Aug. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
August, 1995, page 21
Canada: On May 10, 1995, a government panel investigating why more than 11,000 Canadians, most of them hemophiliacs, contracted AIDS and hepatitis in the 1980's, announced that it had traced the illness to blood products made with blood from Arkansas state prisoners, many of whom later tested positive for the ...
David Urban, 35 years old, was serving a 30-day sentence in the Winnebago County Jail in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, when, at 1:00 pm on January 13, he began complaining to guards that he felt ill and needed medical attention. The sheriff's deputies who run the jail thought Urban was faking. Twenty ...
The West-African state of Senegal was created by it's former French colonial rulers, who upon granting "Independance" to the country, set up a puppet government subservient to both its former French masters and the multinational corporations, who perpetuate the looting of Senegal's raw materials and exploitation of cheap labor as ...
