News in Brief by Roger Hummel Alaska: On April 11, 2002, Cynthia Cooper, the head prosecutor in the state attorney general's office, resigned after being judicially admonished for pursuing felony charges against a public defender who crashed his car into a light pole. Anchorage prosecutors had agreed to a misdemeanor …
Mistakenly Released Prisoners Have No Due Process Rights by The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has held that prisoners who were released on mandatory supervision then arrested as escaped prisoners and reincarcerated without a hearing had no right to due process. Vincent Henderson, Daryelle Rexrode, and John Calella, …
Maryland Court Ruling on Tobacco Smoke Prompts Settlement by A Maryland federal district court's ruling denying summary judgment in an "environmental tobacco smoke" (ETS) case has prompted the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DOPSACS) to ban tobacco, matches, and lighters at all Maryland state prisons, effective June, …
Deadly Nostalgia: The Politics of Boot Camps by Christian Parenti The short, stout eighth grader Gina Score, was never much of an athlete. But that didn't matter to the staff at South Dakota's Plankinton boot camp for girls, where militarystyle discipline and calisthenics were the modus operandi and, as staff …
Prison Psychologist Pleads Guilty to Aiding Escape by Elizabeth Feil, 43, a former psychologist at the Patuxent Institution in Baltimore, MD has pled guilty to accessory to escape for her role in helping her lover, Byron Smoot, 29, escape from a medium security prison in Jessup, Maryland. Smoot had been …
Constitutionality of ADA Upheld by Fourth Circuit by In the September, 1998, issue of PLN we reported Amos v. Maryland Department of Public Safety, 126 F.3d 589 (4th Cir. 1997) in which the court held that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12131-12165 and the Rehabilitation Act …
US Supreme Court Holds Media Ride-Alongs Unconstitutional by A unanimous United States Supreme Court held that police violate the Fourth amendment of the U.S. constitution when they allow members of the news media to ride along with them while executing search and arrest warrants. The court also held police were …
Prisoner Can Attend His Civil Trial at Government Expense by A federal district court in Maryland held that it would permit a federal prisoner, confined in Pennsylvania, to personally attend his three-day civil rights trial in Greenbelt, Maryland, at government expense. In separate incidents in 1993 and 1994, Anthony Hawks …
BOP Exceeds Statutory Authority in Denying Sentence Reductions by Afederal district court in the District of Columbia held that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had exceeded its statutory authority by defining "violent" offenses to preclude a sentence reduction for convictions the courts have consistently defined as "non-violent." In 1994 congress …
Open Society Institute Funds College Classes in Maryland Prisons by When the Clinton Crime Bill gutted federal Pell Grants for prisoners, some states' prison education programs were hit harder than others. Many states funded post-secondary education entirely with state money. Maryland prisoners, though, were the hardest hit. Virtually all of …
Maryland Indigent Court Cost Suit Settled by On July 1, 1997, U.S. district court judge Marvin Garbis approved the settlement of a class action suit involving the collection of previously waived indigent court costs. In 1991 the Maryland legislature enacted a Budget Reconciliation Act, 1991 Md. Laws, Ch. 3, § …
ADA Roundup by After the U.S. Supreme Court granted review in Yeskey v. Pennsylvania DOC to decide whether the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applied to state prisoners we stopped running articles on the ADA until the supreme court resolved this important question. Below are cases that were decided before …
Failure to Remove Sutures States Claim by A federal district court in Maryland held that a prisoner raised a genuine issue of material fact, requiring a trial, because prison doctors did not remove wire sutures from his abdomen. Nicholas Jones, a Maryland state prisoner, underwent hernia surgery. Afterwards, suture wires …
PLRA 'Strike' Removed by A federal district court in Maryland issued an order removing a PLRA "strike" against a prisoner litigant. The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) added section (g) to 28 U.S.C. § 1915. The new section states that whenever a prisoner has had three suits dismissed as frivolous …
Prison Visitor Allowed to Refuse Search by The court of appeals for the state of Maryland held that prison visitors cannot be searched once they agree to turn back from a guard booth; detention of a prison visitor requires probable cause based on a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the visitor …
Maryland Lifers Denied Parole by Rocky Hines In 1993, the Maryland DOC instituted a policy which denied all lifers a security status below medium. Those lifers who were then in minimum security facilities, pre-release, and work release were checked in and transferred to maximum and medium security prisons. This was …
Parole Change Violates Ex Post Facto Clause by In the July, 1995, issue of PLN we reported the supreme court's ruling in Morales v. California Department of Correction, 115 S.Ct. 1597 (1995) which held that legislatively extending the time in which a prisoner can appear before a parole board does …
Fourth Circuit Rules on IFP Statute, Again by In the July, 1995, issue of PLN we reported Nasim v. Warden, Maryland House of Correction, 42 F.3d 1472 (4th Cir. 1995) in which the fourth circuit court of appeals reversed a district court's dismissal of a prisoners' § 1983 suit as …
Maryland Medical Co-Pay Policy Upheld by In the November, 1995, issue of PLN we discussed case law and litigation strategy on challenging state laws requiring prisoners to pay for medical services. As more states pass such laws we foresee more litigation on the issue. A federal district court in Maryland …
4th Cir. Clarifies IFP Dismissal Standard by The court of appeals for the fourth circuit has limited the discretion of district courts to dismiss suits filed in forma pauperis (IFP) on grounds of frivolousness where the court believes the complaint is untimely. The court also discussed when a cause of …
