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Prison Legal News: August, 2021

Issue PDF
Volume 32, Number 8

In this issue:

  1. 25 Years of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (p 1)
  2. From the Editor (p 12)
  3. Investigation Finds “Deadly Delays” in Cancer Diagnosis at Washington State Prisons (p 12)
  4. Whistleblowers: Software Bug Keeping Hundreds of Arizona Prisoners Beyond Release Dates (p 14)
  5. How Sheriffs Are Extracting Wealth from People in Jail (p 16)
  6. Illinois First State to Abolish Cash Bail (p 20)
  7. CFPB and Three States Sue Over Predatory Immigrant Bail and GPS Scam (p 20)
  8. Smart Communications Contract Reveals Plans for Expanding Privatized Prison Mail (p 22)
  9. Scores of Ecuadoran Prisoners Die in Coordinated Melees (p 23)
  10. Florida Supreme Court Disbars Attorney For Making Sex Films in Jail Visiting Room (p 24)
  11. Justice Delayed in California Jails: Lengthy Pretrial Imprisonment Common (p 24)
  12. New York State Law Ends Long-Term Solitary Confinement in Prisons and Jails (p 26)
  13. $1,000 Award to Ohio Prisoner for Violation of Public Records Act (p 27)
  14. Resisting a Prison Without End (p 28)
  15. Ohio Enacts Criminal Justice Reform in 2020 (p 30)
  16. Seventh Circuit Says Racial Disparity Argument ‘Too Weak to Require Discussion’ in COVID-Related Motion for Compassionate Release (p 30)
  17. Seventh Circuit Reinstates Illinois DOC Prisoner’s Suit Against Wexford Psychiatrist (p 31)
  18. $1.65 Million Settlement for Family of Prisoner Killed at Rikers Island (p 32)
  19. Sixth Circuit Reinstates Lawsuit Over Kentucky Jail Prisoner’s Suicide (p 32)
  20. Rebellion at GEO-Run Prison in New Mexico (p 33)
  21. Louisiana Law School Counts Deaths Behind Bars Because State Won’t (p 34)
  22. NYC Department of Corrections Continued Noncompliance to Consent Decree and Spending Nearly Half A Million Dollars Per Prisoner in 2020 (p 35)
  23. Second Circuit Holds Control Unit Placement for Former Death Row Prisoners Unconstitutional Bill of Attainder (p 36)
  24. $11,000 Recovery for Asthmatic Indiana Prisoner in Denial of Treatment After Cell Block Fire (p 36)
  25. South Carolina to Use Firing Squads to Execute Prisoners (p 38)
  26. Minnesota Mothers to Receive More Bonding Time with Their Newborn Children (p 38)
  27. Medical Update: COVID is Not Over (p 40)
  28. America’s Biggest Jails Are Frontline Environmental Justice Communities (p 42)
  29. Planned Massive Shortfall in Funding to Maintain Minnesota Prisons (p 44)
  30. Federal Judge Rejects BOP’s Attempts to Keep Videos of Force-Feeding Prisoners at ADX Secret (p 44)
  31. HRDC Settles Censorship Lawsuit with Johnson County, Kansas Jail for $50,000 and Policy Changes (p 46)
  32. Florida Prisons Face Ongoing Staff Shortages Due to Low Pay And Long Hours (p 46)
  33. U.S. Department of Justice Publishes Statistics on Prisoners’ Deaths (p 48)
  34. Virginia Federal Court Sentences Former Superintendent of Rockbridge County Jail to 51 Months in Prison for Brutality and Corruption (p 50)
  35. No Qualified Immunity for Oregon Prison Officials’ COVID-19 Response; Class Certified (p 50)
  36. Report Shows Official Misconduct Responsible for More than Half of Exonerations (p 52)
  37. Illinois Prisoner Gets Mixed Results in Appeal of Suit Against Wexford and Doctors (p 52)
  38. Seven Guards Fired After Prisoner Dies in TX Jail (p 54)
  39. Virginia Prison Guards Attack Prisoners with Dogs (p 54)
  40. Connecticut Makes All Prison Communications Free, Makes History (p 56)
  41. Orange County California Jail Guard Investigated for Burning Mentally Ill Prisoner (p 56)
  42. Potential Radioactive Exposure to Manatee County Jail Prisoners in Florida (p 58)
  43. Change in Good Time Makes Tens of Thousands of California Prisoners Eligible for Release (p 58)
  44. Anti-Parole Whistleblower Prompts Investigation of Virginia Parole Board (p 60)
  45. No Mutual Assent Where Detainee Forced to Accept Release Card in HRDC Case (p 60)
  46. California Juvenile Court Erred in Removing Child from Imprisoned Father’s Care (p 61)
  47. News in Brief (p 62)
  48. $550,000 in Damages Ordered to Woman Prisoner Raped by New York Guard (p 62)

25 Years of the Prison Litigation Reform Act

From the Editor

Investigation Finds “Deadly Delays” in Cancer Diagnosis at Washington State Prisons

Whistleblowers: Software Bug Keeping Hundreds of Arizona Prisoners Beyond Release Dates

KJZZ is not naming the whistleblowers because they fear retaliation. The employees said they ...

How Sheriffs Are Extracting Wealth from People in Jail

by Katie Jane Fernelius, The Appeal, June 30, 2021

California’s legislature adopted a bill last year that would have limited the price of commissary items in county jails, and imposed new constraints on how the sheriffs who run those jails can contract with private companies that provide jail services. Advocates ...

Illinois First State to Abolish Cash Bail

CFPB and Three States Sue Over Predatory Immigrant Bail and GPS Scam

Smart Communications Contract Reveals Plans for Expanding Privatized Prison Mail

Scores of Ecuadoran Prisoners Die in Coordinated Melees

Ecuador’s prison system has been operating in crisis mode for three years. Beginning in 2019, 24 prisoners were killed in overcrowded prisons holding over 38,000 prisoners which was designed and built to hold 27,000. That number soared to 103 deaths in 2020.

The main problem is alleged to be rival ...

Florida Supreme Court Disbars Attorney For Making Sex Films in Jail Visiting Room

Andrew Spark allegedly used his Florida Bar card ...

Justice Delayed in California Jails: Lengthy Pretrial Imprisonment Common

New York State Law Ends Long-Term Solitary Confinement in Prisons and Jails

“Having spent a lot of time with the advocates who have direct stakes in this bill, this is deeply meaningful,” ...

$1,000 Award to Ohio Prisoner for Violation of Public Records Act

The Ohio Supreme Court concluded that an official at Toledo Correctional Institution (TCI) violated the Ohio Public Records Act by failing to identify all records requested by a prisoner. In addition to ordering relief for the prisoner to obtain the records, the court awarded the prisoner $1,000 in statutory damages. ...

Resisting a Prison Without End

by Jayson Hawkins and Panagioti Tsolkas

The fantasy of those who profit off the Prison Industrial Complex has long been perpetual incarceration. This dream has seeped into reality in recent decades as many states began adopting LWOP (life without parole) sentences. Yet another means of warehousing people without a release ...

Ohio Enacts Criminal Justice Reform in 2020

Seventh Circuit Says Racial Disparity Argument ‘Too Weak to Require Discussion’ in COVID-Related Motion for Compassionate Release

The court’s February 23, ...

Seventh Circuit Reinstates Illinois DOC Prisoner’s Suit Against Wexford Psychiatrist

On February 9, 2021, the Seventh Circuit court of appeals held that a district court erred when it departed significantly from Pruitt v. Mote, 503 F.3d 647 (7th Cir. 2007) in its consideration of a mentally ill Illinois prisoner’s motion to recruit counsel. The court held ...

$1.65 Million Settlement for Family of Prisoner Killed at Rikers Island

Casey Holloway was killed while in the mental health observation unit at the notorious Rikers Island Correctional Facility. Artemio Rosa, another prisoner with a history of violence, strangled the 35-year-old Holloway as he sat in a chair. Holloway was in jail facing robbery charges when Rosa decided to strangle him. ...

Sixth Circuit Reinstates Lawsuit Over Kentucky Jail Prisoner’s Suicide

On October 29, 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reinstated a claim against a Louisville, Kentucky jail classification officer who, contrary to jail policy, moved a prisoner to a segregation cell with a barred window despite recent suicide attempts and suicidal tendencies. ...

Rebellion at GEO-Run Prison in New Mexico

A three-hour uprising at a privately-run medium security prison in New Mexico on November 2, 2020, led to a few prisoner injuries, a fire and property destruction. It was an “incident [that] absolutely could have been prevented,” said said the state’s Corrections Secretary Alisha Tafoya Lucero.

But the clash between ...

Louisiana Law School Counts Deaths Behind Bars Because State Won’t

As a result of this knowledge gap, the Loyola University law school has undertaken an ...

NYC Department of Corrections Continued Noncompliance to Consent Decree and Spending Nearly Half A Million Dollars Per Prisoner in 2020

Second Circuit Holds Control Unit Placement for Former Death Row Prisoners Unconstitutional Bill of Attainder

$11,000 Recovery for Asthmatic Indiana Prisoner in Denial of Treatment After Cell Block Fire

A combined $11,000 settlement and default judgment was obtained by a pro se asthmatic prisoner in a lawsuit alleging guards were deliberately indifferent to the prisoner’s health during and after a cell block fire at the Indiana State Prison (ISP). One prisoner died during the fire.

Prisoner Dustin E. McGuire ...

South Carolina to Use Firing Squads to Execute Prisoners

In recent decades, the inability of state corrections departments to procure the necessary drugs to carry out lethal injections and kill people has led to a gradual decline in the number of executions in America. Many states have put a moratorium on death sentences as a result, ...

Minnesota Mothers to Receive More Bonding Time with Their Newborn Children

Medical Update: COVID is Not Over

Worldwide Pandemic

As I write this in mid-July the pandemic has again changed direction and cases are rising throughout the world. Deadly surges are beginning or continuing in Africa, Latin America and South Asia. Indonesia is having their worst pandemic yet. New estimates suggest that ...

America’s Biggest Jails Are Frontline Environmental Justice Communities

The three biggest county jail systems in the U.S. demonstrate how incarcerated people are uniquely exposed to environmental hazards.

Planned Massive Shortfall in Funding to Maintain Minnesota Prisons

Traditionally, the state of Minnesota passes a bonding bill, which funds the state’s expenditures not ...

Federal Judge Rejects BOP’s Attempts to Keep Videos of Force-Feeding Prisoners at ADX Secret

by Dale Chappell  

A federal judge has rejected attempts by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to keep videos of staff force-feeding a prisoner on a hunger strike at the Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence, Colorado, after the BOP had claimed a “law enforcement” exception under the Freedom of ...

HRDC Settles Censorship Lawsuit with Johnson County, Kansas Jail for $50,000 and Policy Changes

Florida Prisons Face Ongoing Staff Shortages Due to Low Pay And Long Hours

Inch sought to expand upon a pilot program approved in ...

U.S. Department of Justice Publishes Statistics on Prisoners’ Deaths

Report number NCJ 255970 covered mortality in state and federal prisons 2001 - 2018 while number NCJ 256002 covered mortality in state and local jails ...

Virginia Federal Court Sentences Former Superintendent of Rockbridge County Jail to 51 Months in Prison for Brutality and Corruption

In May 2021, the former supervisor of Virginia’s Rockbridge County Regional Jail was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison after he was convicted for violating the civil rights of prisoners and public corruption.

Following a six-day federal bench trial in 2020, John Marshall Higgins, 62, was convicted on three ...

No Qualified Immunity for Oregon Prison Officials’ COVID-19 Response; Class Certified

Report Shows Official Misconduct Responsible for More than Half of Exonerations

Illinois Prisoner Gets Mixed Results in Appeal of Suit Against Wexford and Doctors

The court’s March 16, 2021 opinion was issued in an appeal brought by Illinois prisoner Michael Thomas. ...

Seven Guards Fired After Prisoner Dies in TX Jail

Virginia Prison Guards Attack Prisoners with Dogs

On ...

Connecticut Makes All Prison Communications Free, Makes History

Connecticut made history on June 16, 2020, when Governor Lamont signed Senate Bill 972, making the state the first in the country where prison phone calls will be free for all prisoners and their families, including incarcerated youth. The state Senate and House fully funded the bipartisan bill, allocating $11.2 ...

Orange County California Jail Guard Investigated for Burning Mentally Ill Prisoner

Twenty days after the incident in April, 2021, the Sheriff’s department submitted the case to the county’s ...

Potential Radioactive Exposure to Manatee County Jail Prisoners in Florida

Change in Good Time Makes Tens of Thousands of California Prisoners Eligible for Release

Anti-Parole Whistleblower Prompts Investigation of Virginia Parole Board

No Mutual Assent Where Detainee Forced to Accept Release Card in HRDC Case

The Court’s June 2, 2021, order was issued ...

California Juvenile Court Erred in Removing Child from Imprisoned Father’s Care

California’s Second District Court of Appeal vacated a juvenile court’s finding that an incarcerated father was a detriment to the child. It also vacated the order that removing the child from the father’s custody.

The court’s April 2, 2021, opinion was issued in an appeal brought by V.N., an imprisoned ...

News in Brief

Alabama: On June 9, 2021, a former guard at the Federal Correctional Institution in Aliceville, Alabama, agreed to plead guilty to federal charges that he had sexual intercourse with a prisoner in the laundry room at the women’s prison west of Tuscaloosa. According to the Birmingham News, Eric Todd ...

$550,000 in Damages Ordered to Woman Prisoner Raped by New York Guard

Calling the crime “reprehensible,” a Manhattan federal judge ordered a former New York prison guard on May 28, 2021, to pay $550,000 in damages to a prisoner he was convicted of sexually assaulting.

According to a report by the New York Daily News, the former Bedford Hills Correctional Facility ...