Oregon Prisoners Confined For Mental Illness Causing Sexual Deviancy Entitled to Adequate Treatment by Oregon Prisoners Confined For Mental Illness Causing Sexual Deviancy Entitled to Adequate Treatment In 1978, Merlin Ohlinger and another man identified only as Haddon (plaintiffs) were Oregon state prisoners. Both had indeterminate life sentences under OKS …
$900,000 Settlement In Eugene, Oregon Police Sexual Assault Civil Rights Case by Unknown plaintiffs filed a Federal civil rights complaint against the City of Eugene, Oregon, claiming that Eugene Police Officer Roger Magena and other unnamed officers engaged in a pattern of sexual misconduct reported by citizens, due to insufficient …
County Liable for Miscalculating Detainees Sentence by The plaintiff was denied credit for time served through a record-keeping error arising from the existence of two indictments for the same criminal act. A county policy allegedly prohibited staff from counting days for the same charge under two different court case numbers …
Punitive Damages of 31 to 1 Upheld in Abortion Access Suit by The court approves punitive damages under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act against anti-abortion protesters who threatened the lives of abortion providers, in ratios to compensatory damages of up to 32 to 1. At 1063: "This …
Oregon Prisoner Has Right to Medication by Oregon Prisoner Has Right To Medication The United States District Court in Oregon denied a motion for summary judgment in a suit filed by a prisoner who claimed that he was denied medication for a mental disorder. Glen S. Page, a prisoner at …
Guards Not Liable For Deadly Force to Quell Riot by An Oregon federal district court held that prison officials are not liable for action they took to quell a disturbance that resulted in injury to the plaintiff, who was a non-participant in the disturbance. This action, filed by a prisoner …
Indigent Mental Patients Court Access Rights Upheld by The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that indigent mental patients have the same right to access of courts, as do indigent prisoners filing pro se. The basis for this class action civil rights suit was the patients were allowed …
$402,000 Paid in Oregon Guard's Discrimination Suit by Oregon prison guard Bruce Anglin, 37, was awarded $402,000 after an 8-day jury trial on his claim that the Oregon Department of Corrections failed to reinstate him to available and suitable work and discriminated on the basis of disability in 1997. Anglin …
Limit On Free Filings Upheld, Dismissal For Frivolousness, Nonprosecution Reversed by Limit On Free Filings Upheld, Dismissal For Frivolousness, Nonprosecution Reversed The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court's order limiting a prisoner to six in forma pauperis filings per year, but reversed and remanded several of …
Oregon Court of Appeals Grants Judicial Review of Parole Decision by In this case involving the state parole board's decision to defer a prisoner's release on parole, the Oregon Court of Appeals held that the prisoner presented at least two substantial questions of law and could therefore proceed on judicial …
Denial of Handicapped Shower Implicates ADA/RA & §1983 by A federal court in Oregon held that the state can be sued under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (RA). The court also held that prison officials could be sued in …
No Subpoenas for Indigent Litigants by The court of appeals for the Ninth circuit affirmed the dismissal of an Oregon prisoner's 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 action alleging claims against a prison guard, who did not honor a subpoena, and an assistant attorney general, who advised the guard the subpoena did …
New Wrongful Death Trial Prompts $600,000 Settlement; Judge Gave Faulty Jury Instructions, Finds Excessive Force by On December 5, 1999, 29-year-old Damon Lowery's life came to a tragic end while in police custody. More than five years later, with a new trial looming, Portland, Oregon officials paid Lowery's estate $600,000 …
Jail Crowding Alone Not Unconstitutional by The plaintiffs were housed in two-person cells adapted for three prisoners. The space in the cells (81 to 96 square feet, with 35 to 40 square feet of unencumbered floor space) did not permit all three prisoners to be off their bunks at the …
Federal Parolee Can Challenge Forced Medication Release Condition by The district court imposed as a condition of supervised release after a prison sentence that the defendant take whatever psychotropic medications were prescribed by his treating physicians. The defendant's challenge to the restriction was ripe on direct appeal, even without evidence …
Lack of Indigent Defense in Oregon Suit Dismissed As Moot by Oregon had a budget crisis, so inter alia it suspended criminal proceedings against indigents and did not provide counsel for them. The district court abstained under Younger, and the court now dismisses as moot because the courts are back …
Continuing Rehabilitation Act Claims Require Exhaustion by Plaintiffs whose administrative claims were not timely with respect to the discrete acts of which they complained cannot sue under the Rehabilitation Act based on the continuing violations doctrine merely because the challenged policy continues in effect. The Supreme Court held in National …
BOP Refusal to Credit State Sentence as Concurrent Upheld by The refusal of the federal Bureau of Prisons in Oregon to exercise its discretion to designate a state prison as the place of service of a federal sentence, which would have the effect of making the sentences run concurrently, did …
BOP Substance Abuse/Early Release Regulation Violates APA by The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a 1997 Bureau of Prisons (BOP) regulation precluding substance abuse treatment and early release to prisoners convicted of firearm offenses violated the notice and comment provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). In 1990, …
Juveniles Enjoined from Placement in Adult Jails by A federal district court in Oregon entered an injunction in favor of juvenile prisoners and awarded them attorney fees in a lawsuit against the Columbia County Correctional Facility in St. Helens, Oregon. The court held that confining runaway children or children out …