Idaho Prisoner Wins $602,000 Settlement against Corizon

by Derek Gilna

An Idaho state prisoner, William A. Bown, obtained a $602,782.50 settlement from Corizon Health in July 2014 for damages resulting from deliberately indifferent medical care arising from a heart attack he suffered at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.

Although Bown ...

Florida City Can Deny Water Service to CCA Site Outside its Boundaries

Florida’s Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Court held that the City of Pembroke Pines has no duty to provide water and sewage services to a site owned by Correctional Corporation of America (CCA).

CCA bought the site, which is located in the town of Southwest Ranches, in 1998. It planned to build a 750-bed women’s jail for Broward County, but the county withdrew its plans. Since, CCA has tried to build an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on the site.

CCA filed a lawsuit in 2012 claiming Pembroke Pines has a duty to provide service to the site. A federal judge set the case aside. Pembroke Pines then filed suit in state court to clarify its obligation. A trial was held, and Judge Carol-Lisa Phillps issued a ruling.

Her order found no contract existed, and the city charter required the city commission to approve service to the sites outside city boundaries. CCA expected to receive service through a stub on city property, but the facility itself would be outside the boundaries. With no approval by the commission, CCA was not entitled to service.

“I am pleased with the decision; ...

Private Prisons: Just Bit Players in Mass Incarceration

by James Kilgore             

Copyright, Truthout.org. This article was originally published on October 19, 2015; reprinted with permission.

Social justice activists love to hate private prisons. The loathing is easy to justify. Making profit by locking people up and keeping them there is repulsive. Moreover, major private prison operators like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group have a history of tragedy and ruthless behavior. From the early days of CCA when cofounder Tom Beasley described marketing prisons as "just like ... selling cars, or real estate, or hamburgers" to more recent revelations of locking up preschoolers, private prisons have plumbed the depths of immorality. And they have thrown money at the project, spending millions on lobbying for harsher sentencing laws to secure their bottom lines, even bribing judges to incarcerate juveniles.

Since 2000, private prison companies have staked out the war on immigrants as their market niche, working with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to promote the passage of harsh anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona, Alabama and other states to corral more "customers" for their growing stable of detention centers. Unless you are a shareholder, there is little to ...

A recent report from The Sentencing Project, based in Washington, D.C., concludes that the mass-privatization of American prisons has encouraged, not deterred, many countries—including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Brazil—to hand over the responsibility of its prisoners to for-profit companies.

"Research to date on private prisons has found that they perform no better than publicly operated facilities, are not guaranteed to reduce correctional costs, and provide an incentive for increasing correctional and detention populations," The Sentencing Project says in its August 2013 report on international trends in prison privatization.

"Despite these repeated failings," the report argues, "many countries, including those facing serious problems in the quality and capabilities of their correctional systems, have followed the United States in adopting a flawed and shortsighted scheme."

The report finds that Florida-based GEO Group, the second-largest private prison company in the United States, made 14% of its 2012 revenue off "international services," while G4S, a United Kingdom-based for-profit prison operator, claims to be the "largest security service provider in the world."

GEO Group, G4S and Britain's Serco, all of which "dominate" the international market, the report says, have found at least 11 countries spread across North and South America, Europe, Africa and ...

Federal Court Denies Former Prisoner Right to Catholic Television

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a prisoner’s equal protection suit as frivolous. Raymond Gutierrez, a California prisoner housed at a Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) facility in Mississippi, filed suit in the lower court, alleging an equal protection violation through CCA’s failure to provide him access to a Catholic television network. The lower court dismissed the suit as frivolous and for failure to state a claim and Gutierrez appealed. On April 3, 2014, the court of appeals affirmed the lower court’s holding.

While Gutierrez had been incarcerated at a Mississippi CCA facility, he claimed that CCA had provided a Protestant based television network but had denied his request for Catholic based television. However, according to CCA’s Religious Review Committee, the television network, Trinity Broadcasting Network, was nondenominational and CCA could not offer individual religious networks to satisfy each denomination.

Gutierrez filed suit in the District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi in January 2013, alleging that his rights had been violated under the Equal Protection Clause as CCA did not provide access to a Catholic television network. The ...

Nevada: Incorrect Analysis of Fact and Law is Harmless Error in Denying Motion for New Trial

The Nevada Supreme Court held that a trial court abused its discretion by wrongly categorizing a fact and subsequently applying the incorrect legal standard to it in denying the defendant’s motion for a new trial. But, finding the abuse of discretion was “harmless error,” the court affirmed the denial of the defendant’s motion.

Wackenhut of Nevada, Inc. (“Wackenhut”) had judgment entered against it after a jury trial, and Wackenhut subsequently filed a motion for a new trial, alleging claims of misconduct by the plaintiffs’ counsel. The trial court denied the motion and Wackenhut appealed. As the trial court had not supported the judgment with its findings, the Nevada Supreme Court remanded the case to the trial court for it to do so. The trial court then supported its judgment with findings that misconduct by the plaintiffs’ counsel had not been objected to and that the plain error standard applied. On July 18, 2014, the Nevada Supreme Court determined that, although the trial court had erred in its reasoning, the error was harmless.

Of each of the attorney misconduct claims that Wackenhut alleged in support ...

Vermont DOC Practive of Imprisoning People After Rejecting Parole Plan

The Vermont Department of Corrections’ (VDOC) process of reviewing prisoners’ post-prison accommodations plan is the subject of a prisoner’s lawsuit alleging VDOC abuses its discretion in denying prisoners release after rejecting their plans.

The suit was brought by Wendy Pelkey-Grant, who was scheduled to be released in October 2013 after serving the minimum on her six to fifteen-years sentence. Pelkey-Grant is a violent offender based on a voluntary manslaughter charge for killing her abusive husband.

With her release looming, VDOC’s regional office began analyzing Pelkey-Grant’s release accommodation plan. Based upon information from that office, her daughter used her own savings to secure a two-bedroom apartment in West Rutland. A probation officer gave a favorable report and VDOC gave preliminary approval.

“He said he thought it was perfect for her to come live with us,” testified Alyssia Pelkey. Then, VDOC received a victim complaint about Pelkey-Grant living in her home town of Rutland, and it rejected her release plan.

“It felt like we were being toyed with a little bit because we don’t have any money to pay people to look into it for us or anybody in our family who ...

Prisoner Calls 911 on Escapees

On Tuesday, September 24, 2013, Joshua Silverman was one of eight prisoners being transported to their respective destinations, in different states, by the Prison Transport Service. (PTS) The van transporting the prisoners parked at a hospital while the drivers took two men inside for treatment. While inside, the guards left the keys in the van with the engine running, and the remaining eight men unsupervised. That is when Lester Burns and Michael Coleman decided to make their getaway.

The two men managed to kick down a partition that separated the prisoners from the cab of the van. After driving a short distance they turned off the road and continued their escape on foot. Of the six remaining prisoners, all but Silverman remained with the van.

After Burns and Coleman left Silverman eased into the front seat, found a cellphone and called 911.

“Ma'am, you're probably not going to believe this,” he said, “but I'm a prisoner in a van, and I'm here with a couple of these other cats. A couple of the guys that were in the van jacked the van at the hospital,” Silverman explained to the operator. “We're in Oklahoma somewhere, I ...

$425,000 Settlement in Suit over South Carolina Jail's Failure to Treat Diabetic Prisoner

by Matt Clarke

In June 2013, Sumter County, South Carolina and Southern Health Partners, Inc. (SHP), the contract provider of health care for prisoners at the Sumter-Lee Regional Detention Center (the jail), settled a lawsuit brought by ...

No Qualified Immunity for Private Doctor Working in Prison

On August 12, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that a private doctor under contract at a prison is not entitled to assert a defense of qualified immunity when sued for deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of a prisoner.

Timothy Hughes was incarcerated at the Butler County Prison in Southern Ohio, arriving there in March of 2007.

During his intake interview, Hughes answered "no" when asked if he was suicidal, but also told the officer that he had attempted suicide in the past year. As a result, a suicide alert was noted in Hughes' electronic file.

Ten days later it was discovered that Hughes had not been taking his prescribed medication, Seroquel, but was not referred to a doctor. Hughes, however, then sent written requests to the prison psychiatrist, Dr. Kenneth Tepe, to get back on his medication. His request was screened by a social worker that worked with Tepe, and she denied Hughes' request to see the doctor.

Days later, Hughes was taken to segregation after getting into an altercation with his cellmate. While there, Hughes told a sergeant he was thinking ...