Michigan Grievances Exhausted Upon Fair Notice of Claim by The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a district court erred when it found that a Michigan prisoner failed to exhaust available administrative remedies and dismissed his § 1983 action on that basis. Michigan prisoner Ronnie Burton brought suit against …
Overcrowding Forces Alabama Prisoners Into Private Prison Web by Gary Hunter Court orders have forced Alabama to reduce the number of prisoners in its county jails and send half of its prison population to two other states. Until recently the Alabama Department of Corrections (DOC) had crammed 28,000 prisoners into …
Michigan Supreme Court Allows Seizure of Prisoner's Pension Despite ERISA by by Matthew T. Clarke The Supreme Court of Michigan (SCM) upheld a court's ordering a prisoner to have his pension benefits deposited in his prisoner account so that the state can seize a large portion of it to reimburse …
Pro Se Tips and Tactics by John Midgley The Supreme Court recently decided another in a series of cases about when prisoners can sue directly under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, versus when they must first employ habeas corpus proceedings, to challenge actions by prison officials. The difference is very important …
Suits in Michigan and New Jersey Seek to Force HCV Treatment by A groundswell of prisoner litigation is taking aim at states to force them to comprehensively and meaningfully address HCV in prison. These suits, often brought as class actions, seek to mandate a protocol for HCV detection and treatment …
Preliminary Injunction Automatically Expired in 90 Days for Alabama Women Prisoners by Bob Williams The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama has brought to a halt prospective relief from unconstitutional conditions at an Alabama state women's prison because a previously entered preliminary injunction was allowed to expire …
Common Fund Required for Incentive Award by The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held a named class representative may not receive an incentive award unless a common fund is established. Prisoner C. Pepper Moore, who was named a class representative in 1988 in Hadix v. Johnson, which was a class …
Prisons Nationwide Fail to Treat HCV Epidemic by John E Dannenberg Prisons Nationwide Fail To Treat HCV Epidemic by John E. Dannenberg The JeopardyTM answer is: "The national average treatment rate for HCV-infected prisoners." The winning question is: "What is approximately 1%?" With HCV [Hepatitis-C] infection rates in state prisons …
Alabama Restores Voting Rights to Some Ex-Prisoners by On June 24, 2003, Republican Alabama governor Bob Riley announced he was vetoing the felons' voting bill passed by the state legislature. The bill would have made it easier for certain felons to have their voting rights reinstated. Alabama law imposes a …
Jail Rape Results in Reduced Sentence by An Alabama federal district court has reduced a female prisoner's sentence by a three-level downward departure based on her rape by a jail guard. Deborah Rodriguez pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute 382 kilograms of cocaine hydrochloride. After being raped by …
Court Mail Is Legal Mail; Damages and Fees Upheld in Legal Mail Opening by Daniel E. Manville by Dan Manville The Sixth Circuit has held that mail from a court is entitled to First Amendment protection, which means that prison officials had to open legal mail in the presence of …
Alabama Highway Labor Kills Three Prisoners, Three More Injured by In a sudden surge of mayhem, three Alabama prisoners were killed in separate incidents and three more were injured. Prisoner highway labor was temporarily suspended. On April 11, 2003, Dairron Clark, 33, was struck and killed by a minivan on …
Magistrate Judge Cannot Enter Order on Post-Trial or Dispositive Motions by The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a magistrate judge does not have authority to rule upon motions seeking the award of attorney fees and costs, and a district court's failure to make a de novo review of …
The Deadly Health Services of Naphcare in Alabama by Lonnie Burton It is often said that you can tell a lot about a society by checking the condition of its prisons. Based on the way prisoners in Alabama are treated (or, more accurately stated, not treated), citizens of that state …
Temporary Injunction Issued in Alabama Suit by On June 26, 2003, the parties in Baker v. Campbell agreed to the entry of a temporary preliminary injunction which, among other things, provides for "immediate" and "adequate" medical care for Alabama prisoners with serious illnesses. The "Preliminary Injunction Settlement Agreement" stems from …
Michigan Visiting Rules Upheld by U.S. Supreme Court by Robert Woodman On June 16, 2003, the United States Supreme Court unanimously upheld visiting restrictions imposed by the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC). The decision reverses contrary rulings by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and a Michigan federal district …
Nebraska Prisons Get Progressive Phone Contract by John E Dannenberg by Matthew T. Clarke In February, 2003, The Nebraska Department of Corrections (DOC) has contracted with AT&T to set up what may be the most progressive prisoner phone service in the United States. The five-year contract makes AT&T the sole …
PLRA Physical Injury Rule Not Applicable in Non-Prison State Cases by The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated and remanded part of an Alabama Federal District Court's dismissal of a federal prisoner's suit against tobacco companies. The Court held that prisoner suits unrelated to prison conditions that are …
Alabama's Women Prisoners Moved to Louisiana to Ease Overcrowding by Alabama's Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women at Wetumpka was built in 1942 to house 364 prisoners. In 2002, Tutwiler's population rose beyond 1,000 with overcrowding so severe that a group of women prisoners sought relief by filing a lawsuit in …
The Prison Index: Taking the Pulse of the Crime Control Industry by by Peter Wagner, Prison Policy Initiative and Western Prison Project, 2003, 48 pages Review by Paul Wright As a prison journalist, one of the most challenging things is reporting the facts and putting those facts into a bigger …
