On April 27, 1996, president Clinton signed the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) into law attached as a rider to the budget for the Justice Department. The PLRA is the culmination of a lengthy campaign waged by prisoncrats and the National Association of the Attorney Generals (NAAG) to restrict prisoners' ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 5
When president Bill Clinton signed the budget for the Department of Justice it included a rider inserted by Congressman Dick Zimmer (R-NJ). In its entirety it states: "None of the funds made available in this Act shall be used to provide the following amenities or personal comforts in the federal ...
In recent issues Dan and I have mentioned that we were seeking funding to pay a staff person until PLN was able to cover a staff salary on its own. So far we haven't had much luck at getting any grants in the amount needed. We are going to continue ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 6
Double Justice: a Documentary Film About Race and the Death Penalty
This is a 19 minute video tape produced by the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project. The film places the legal imposition of the death penalty in the US in the historical context of American slavery and its legacy. The video ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 6
Analdo Ortega was being held in the Hudson County, N.J., Jail in March of 1989 awaiting trial on burglary charges. According to court testimony, Ortega asked for a blanket and that triggered the anger of some of his captors. Shortly thereafter he was beaten to death.
Four jail guards were ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 6
Double Justice: a Documentary Film About Race and the Death Penalty
This is a 19 minute video tape produced by the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project. The film places the legal imposition of the death penalty in the US in the historical context of American slavery and its legacy. The video ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 6
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has a $2.5 billion annual budget and 40,000 employees. It is the largest state agency in Texas.
From January 1977 to October 1995, 302 prisoners were executed in the U.S. In that same time period, 95 death-sentenced prisoners either died of natural causes ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 7
The U.S. prison population has tripled in the last fifteen years and now stands at well over a million. But the number of bodies is not the only statistic that has grown. According to the Newhouse News Service, 1995 saw record sums of money move through prisoner accounts: In California, ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 7
Alabama's prison commissioner, Ron Jones, was abruptly fired on April 26th after announcing plans to put female prisoners on chain gangs. Jones had ordered the warden at Julia Tutwiler State Prison for Women to develop the chain-gang policy. He said the plan was in reaction to male prisoners who had ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 7
According to a recent computer analysis, Alabama's prison population has tripled since 1980, but the state's crime rate has remained the same. A Birmingham News analysis of Corrections Department statistics and census records show that nearly one of every 167 Alabamans older than 14 are in a state prison. Alabama's ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 8
A federal district court in New York held that extending a prisoner's term in segregation without a hearing may violate his right to due process because it imposed an atypical hardship because this particular prisoner was almost seven feet tall and had difficulty being comfortable in segregation. In the August, ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 8
A federal district court in Hawaii held that a prison rule requiring that prisoners have short hair and remain clean shaven may violate the constitution's guarantee to equal protection of law and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Edmund Abordo, a Hawaii state prisoner, filed suit claiming that the Hawaii ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 9
The court of appeals for the ninth circuit held that prisoners have a clearly established right to use legally adopted religious names and prison officials were not entitled to qualified immunity for violating that right. The court also held such prisoners did not have a clearly established right to notary ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 9
On April 5, 1996, a Denver, Colorado district court jury awarded former prisoner Arthur Nieto $1.44 million in damages against Colorado state prison officials for showing deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs. According to the evidence proved at trial, Nieto was imprisoned at the Delta Correctional Facility in 1991 ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 10
The court of appeals for the sixth circuit held that supervisory prison officials can held liable under the eighth amendment when they ignore the risk of sexual assault to vulnerable prisoners that are later raped. Timothy Taylor is a Michigan state prisoner who is 5 feet tall, weighs 120 pounds, ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 10
In the April, 1996, issue of PLN we reported Newell v. Sauser, 64 F.3d 1416 (9th Cir. 1995) which held that Alaska prison officials were not entitled to qualified immunity for infracting a prisoner who had another prisoner's legal papers in his cell. On March 11, 1996, the court issued ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 11
In the January '96 issue of PLN we featured "TX Anti-Litigation Law," about a law passed in Texas purportedly to stem "frivolous" litigation by prisoners. Also in that article was information about how this type of law was crafted by the National Association of Attorneys General and has been promoted ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 11
[The March 21 issue of Workers World reported that "a struggle exposing super-exploitation of prison labor has broken out at the Oak Park Heights Correctional Facility in Minnesota." The following account is excerpted from that article. Readers may note that Minnesota prisoners have lost litigation seeking the minimum wage. See: ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 12
A federal district court in New York held that prisoners retain a due process liberty interest in remaining in work release. Quentin Hollingsworth, a New York state prisoner, was participating in a work release and home furlough program while nearing the end of his sentence. He held a job earning ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 12
In 1993 Clifford Todd, 68, was chairman of Kentucky based U.S. Corrections Corporation, a private prison firm. In March of this year he was sentenced by a federal judge to a 15-month prison term.
Todd pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year for his part in a bribery and extortion ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 12
No Right to Wages under Interstate Compact
The court of appeals for the eighth circuit held that neither the Interstate Corrections Compact nor Missouri state law required that Missouri prisoners held out of state be paid for their labor. Kenneth Jennings was a prison guard at the Missouri State Penitentiary ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 13
A federal district court in New York held that New York state prisoners retain a state created due process liberty interest to be free from disciplinary segregation. This is the one of the first post Sandin v. Conner, 115 S.Ct. 2300 (1995) cases involving New York prison regulations. Raymond Lee ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 13
In the October, 1995, issue of PLN we reported the ongoing war between the Arizona DOC (ADOC) and the federal judiciary as prison officials sought to evade compliance with federal court orders. Because the Arizona DOC has not been willing to comply with court orders in the past, the court ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 14
The Washington legislature was in session for a mercifully short 60 day session between January and March, 1996. In that period several hundred anti-prisoner and anti-defendant bills were introduced, at a cost of $1,500 each. While several passed the legislature about half of those passed were vetoed by governor Mike ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 14
The Alaska supreme court held that refusing to allow a prisoner to call witnesses and to question the accusing staff member at a prison disciplinary hearing violated the prisoner's due process rights. Mattfi Abruska is an Alaska state prisoner. He was infracted for alleged indecent exposure after a prison guard ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 15
A federal district court in South Carolina awarded a prisoner's attorney $29,516.50 in attorney fees and $1,856.17 in costs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Cecil Lucas is a death row prisoner in South Carolina. After becoming drunk and combative with prison guards he was brutally beaten by guards while ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 15
The court of appeals for the eighth circuit affirmed an award of damages and attorney fees to an Iowa prisoner who was infracted and transferred after he cooperated with an investigation into guard misconduct. Robert Cornell was contacted in 1987 by DOC internal affairs staff conducting an investigation into whether ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 16
by Dan Pens
The Santa Clara County (Calif.) Board of Supervisors decided to commission a report. They assembled a team of independent corrections specialists to study every aspect of the county jail's operation. The County Supervisors wanted to find out why jail detainees seemed to mysteriously die after "tussling" with ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 16
A federal district court in Pennsylvania held that pretrial detainees retain a right of access to the courts. Charles Turiano, a PLN subscriber, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming his right of access to the courts was violated when he was held in the Huntingdon County, PA jail. ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 17
The court of appeals for the fifth circuit held that a district court erred in dismissing as frivolous a suit by a prisoner claiming his eighth amendment rights were violated when they failed to protect him from attack by other prisoners. Billy Horton, a Texas state prisoner, was assaulted by ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 17
Small furniture manufacturers say they could be driven out of business by a rival they simply can't compete with: the government-owned Federal Prison Industries, Inc. (FPI). The corporation uses the trade name UNICOR and "employs" prison labor in federal prisons to manufacture furniture for the military and government agencies.
A ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 18
The court of appeals for the first circuit affirmed a district court's contempt finding against prison officials concerning the monitoring and taping of prisoners' phone calls. In 1979 William Langton and David LeBlanc filed suit against Massachusetts prison officials over the interception and monitoring of their phone calls, including calls ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 19
In 1974 Richard Nixon created the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). The purpose of the LSC was to make grants to agencies and groups around the country which provided legal services to the poor: welfare recipients, prisoners, public housing tenants, aliens, farm workers, etc. In recent years Republicans have worked hard ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 19
Leonard McQuay, also known as Khalfani X. Khaldun, was due to be released in 1997 from the Indiana prison system. But on December 13, 1994, Khalfani was transferred to the Maximum Control Complex in Westville, under investigation for it allegedly stabbing a prison guard at Indiana State Prison. [See: 'IN ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 20
A federal district court in California held that prison officials may not retaliate against prisoners who request medical treatment; that the Prison Industries Fund is the sole remedy for federal prisoners who suffer work related injuries but does not bar a Bivens claim for denial of treatment to the injuries ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 20
A federal district court in New York held that a prisoner who was attacked as part of a "war" between Hispanic and Jamaican prisoners stated an eighth amendment claim for prison officials' failure to protect him. Ted Knowles is a New York state prisoner originally from the island of Antigua, ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 21
The court of appeals for the eighth circuit held that a district court erred when it granted prison officials qualified immunity for punishing a Muslim prisoner who refused to handle pork. Roosevelt Hayes is an Arkansas state prisoner and a Muslim. He was assigned a work assignment in the prison ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 21
The court of appeals for the tenth circuit held that strip searches by members of the opposite gender may violate the fourth amendment. Willie Hayes, a Colorado state prisoner, filed suit claiming his fourth, eighth and fourteenth amendment rights were violated when he was subjected to a visual body cavity ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 22
Australia: On May 6, 1996, 30 prisoners in Adelaide's maximum security Yatala prison took 3 guards hostage and threatened to kill them if police stormed the prison. No reason was given for the hostage taking.
Brazil: On May 9, 1996, 53 prisoners escaped from the Carandiru prison by digging a ...
Loaded on
July 15, 1996
published in Prison Legal News
July, 1996, page 23
Washington Disc. Case
On April 29, 1996, the US Supreme Court announced it would hear an appeal by Washington state prison officials involving a prisoner's challenge to the loss of good time during a prison disciplinary hearing. Jerry Balisok filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenging the loss of ...
