by Derek Gilna

A federal lawsuit was filed in November 2017 against every sheriff in the state of Oklahoma, along with judges, court officials and the Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association, challenging a scheme that turned unpaid court fees and fines into a collection “extortion” racket. Most of the people targeted by the scheme were poor criminal defendants who, as a result of their poverty, often ended up in jail due to their inability to pay. The suit seeks class-action status and the class members could number in the tens of thousands.

The complaint was filed in Tulsa, Oklahoma by seven plaintiffs including Ira Lee Wilkins, who pleaded guilty to a criminal charge in 2015 and failed to pay court costs. A bench warrant was issued; he was arrested and sent to state prison.

Wilkins and other people convicted of criminal offenses, his attorneys said, “are victims of an extortion scheme in which the defendants have conspired to extract as much money as possible ... through a pattern of illegal and shocking behavior.” Dan Smolen, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, added, “In the United States of America you can’t put people in jail because they’re too poor, and that’s what’s happening here.” ...

by Dale Chappell

California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill into law in October 2017 that blocks the expansion of for-profit immigration detention facilities, demonstrating the state’s opposition to President Trump’s efforts to crack down on undocumented immigrants and increase deportations.

The Dignity Not Detention Act (SB 29) restricts new contracts between local government agencies and private companies that operate immigration detention facilities in California, blocks plans to expand existing facilities, and requires a 180-day notice and public hearings for future building permits. The law also requires private immigration detention centers to adhere to national standards for conditions, and requires the California Department of Justice to perform annual audits of such facilities.

“California should not be siding with companies that profit from the detention of asylum seekers,” said state Senator Ricardo Lara, the bill’s sponsor. There are four privately-run immigration centers in California. The GEO Group, which operates the Adelanto Detention Facility in San Bernardino County and the Mesa Verde Detention Facility in Bakersfield, is one of the largest contractors with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), having held $900 million in ICE contracts since 2013. CoreCivic, formerly CCA, runs the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, while the Imperial ...

Pathways (formerly Providence) Community Corrections (PCC) and officials in Rutherford County, Tennessee agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit over predatory practices by the for-profit probation company. The $14.3 million settlement provides compensation for nearly 30,000 people who were trapped by PCC in a cycle of debt, endless probation extensions and ...

by David M. Reutter

On October 10, 2017, a federal district court in Arizona issued an order requiring officials with the Department of Corrections (DOC) to show cause why they should not be held in contempt of a 2014 court-enforced settlement agreement. U.S. Magistrate Judge David K. Duncan also threatened the DOC with sanctions of $1,000 per incident of noncompliance with its agreement to improve medical care for the state’s 33,000 prisoners.

Thirteen prisoners filed suit against the DOC in 2012, alleging deliberate indifference to their medical, dental and mental health care needs, as well as unconstitutional conditions of confinement within the DOC’s segregation units. The case was certified as a class-action and the parties eventually entered into an agreement in 2014 to remedy the constitutional deficiencies. [See: PLN, Feb. 2016, p.56; Sept. 2012, p.34].

Under the settlement, the DOC agreed to guidelines and benchmarks that both the plaintiffs and Magistrate Judge David Duncan said hadn’t been met. Instead, the agency has run an “understaffed” health care system, according to a summary of investigative findings published by Courthouse News, in which “an inmate died with infected lesions swarmed by flies, a man who ate his own feces was never seen ...

by Monte McCoin

Assembly Bill 303, introduced by Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, a former prison guard, would have granted the Nevada Department of Corrections a five-year period to renovate existing prison facilities before eliminating the state’s relationship with for-profit prison firms. The bill progressed through the Nevada legislature with a 38-3 vote in the Assembly on May 24, 2017 before being sent to the state Senate Judiciary Committee, then the full Senate.

According to news reports, the bill was struck down on June 8, 2017 when Governor Brian Sandoval issued a veto. Sandoval explained his reasoning in a statement, saying: “Where AB 303 goes too far, however, is by limiting the discretion of the Director of the Department of Corrections by prohibiting the use of private prisons, starting in 2022. Between now and 2022, much can happen, and there is no way to predict whether private prisons may need to play a critical part in Nevada’s future prison needs.”

Some lawmakers don’t like the idea of for-profit incarceration on principle, while civil rights advocates have raised concerns that private prison companies are not subject to public records laws on the federal level and in some states.

“There’s really no oversight over ...

According to the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC), state prisoner Edward Ray Gilley, Jr., 54, died on November 5, 2016 at the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, a facility owned and operated by CoreCivic – previously known as Corrections Corporation of America.

            In response to a public records request filed by Prison Legal News, on February 13, 2018 the TDOC’s director of communication, Neysa Taylor, reported that Gilley’s death was due to “natural causes.”

            Unless overdosing on meth is “natural,” however, that cause of death was incorrect – though it evidently was not scrutinized or questioned by TDOC officials.

            A previous news report by WSMV Channel 4 in Nashville indicated that Gilley had died of an overdose, though he wasn’t mentioned by name in the report. PLN obtained a copy of the autopsy results from the medical examiner’s office, which concluded that Gilley’s death was caused by “toxic effects of methamphetamine complicating hypertensive cardiovascular disease.” The report noted that a toxicology screen was “significant for methamphetamine” at almost four times the reporting threshold, and the cause of death was ruled accidental – as in an accidental overdose.

            It was not listed as due to natural ...

by Derek Gilna

The parties to a May 2015 class-action settlement between prisoners at the Monterey County jail in California, county officials and the jail’s medical provider – which was supposed to address issues of poor medical and mental healthcare, inadequate staffing, accommodations for disabled prisoners and serious safety problems – were back in court in September 2017 to monitor compliance with the settlement agreement.

California Forensics Medical Group (CFMG), the county’s current medical and mental healthcare provider, was criticized by the judge monitoring the settlement over the quality of the company’s mental health treatment for prisoners.

The terms of the 2015 settlement included a payment of $4.8 million in attorney fees and costs, and a requirement that the county employ a full-time psychiatrist and have another on call at all times in an effort to reduce the increasing number of prisoner suicides at the jail. [See: PLN, April 2016, p.18]. However, CFMG admitted that it had only recently hired an on-site mental health professional due to difficultly in filling the position.

U.S. District Court Judge Beth L. Freeman was unsympathetic. “Maybe you need to offer a better salary,” she said, and indicated she was less than enthusiastic about the ...

The Roderick and Solange Mac­Arthur Justice Center has prevailed in a lawsuit to obtain records related to prisoners held in segregation at Louisiana’s Allen Correctional Center (ACC), run by the GEO Group, a private prison contractor.

A public records request was submitted to ACC on June 19, 2017 and verified as received three days later. No reply was made by July 12, so the MacArthur Justice Center sent a follow-up letter via fax and certified mail seeking the status of its records request. No documents were produced, nor was a response provided by ACC. The Center then filed a public records mandamus petition on August 10, 2017.

“For over nearly two months we have made repeated attempts to obtain the requested documents and the warden simply refuses to provide the information,” said Katie Schwartzmann, co-director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s New Orleans office. “All we want to know is who they are holding in solitary confinement and segregated housing. The warden is illegally obstructing our inquiry and we are now seeking a court’s assistance.”

The Center filed similar requests with other prisons, which promptly complied. ACC, being a privately-managed facility, followed the GEO Group’s practice of trying to keep its ...

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a summary judgment order in favor of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (LDPSC), holding that strip searches of prisoners for security reasons are not unconstitutional.

Freddie R. Lewis, incarcerated at the Winn Correctional Center (WCC), filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against LDPSC and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA, now known as CoreCivic) for alleged violations of his Fourth Amendment rights. He argued that he was subjected to unreasonable strip searches, that LDPSC failed to monitor CCA, and that both CCA and LDPSC failed to comply with their own rules and regulations. He sought injunctive relief and punitive damages.

Lewis worked in the garment factory at WCC, which subjects prisoners to strip searches twice a day. The garment factory has civilians who make deliveries and interact with the prisoner workers; it also has many tools which can easily be converted into weapons. The strip searches, prison officials said, are intended to control the introduction of contraband or weapons into the facility.

The searches are conducted in a partially-secluded room with windows near the exits at each end of the building. Two guards, Carol Melton and Joshua Clark, provided ...

by Matt Clarke

The estate of a man who died in a Colorado jail of a treatable foot malady has settled a lawsuit alleging Corrections Corporation of America (now CoreCivic) and other defendants caused his death by denying him medical care and surgery.

When Dennis Choquette was booked into the ...