Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 1
In a tersely worded decision, Fed eral District Court Judge John C. Coughenour drove a stake into the heart of Washington's controversial civil commitment law (Wash. Rev. Code § 71.09). He ruled the statute unconstitutional on its face, citing: "the violation of the substantive due process component of the Fourteenth ...
Thanksgiving can be a tough holiday to celebrate inside a prison cage. This will be my fifteenth. The first few were mostly about self-pity. As I became more politically conscious, however, Thanksgiving took on a different meaning. It traditionally commemorates starving European conquerors giving thanks for the hospitality and life-saving ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 4
Senate Enrolled Act #56, which went into effect on July 1, 1995, added a new section to the Indiana Criminal Code which makes it a crime to "knowingly or intentionally in a rude, insolent, or angry manner place blood or another body fluid or waste on a Law Enforcement Officer ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 5
In the Oct. `95 issue of PLN we re ported Massachusetts v. Forte, an unpublished state court ruling dismissing a criminal indictment because the prisoner had previously been subjected to disciplinary action by prison officials. As a result, the trial court dismissed the criminal charges arising from the same conduct, ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 6
In the July, 1995, issue of PLN we reported the disciplinary charges filed against Dr. James McGuire, the psychologist at the McNeil Island Corrections Center (MICC) in WA. While practicing as a psychiatrist in Alaska McGuire entered into a sexual relationship with one of his patients, Karma VanGelder, an Alaska ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 6
Sol Wachtler was the former chief judge of New York state's highest court until he was convicted in 1993 of terrorizing, stalking and harassing his ex-lover, socialite Joy Silverman, after she broke off their affair. At one point Wachtler threatened to kidnap Silverman's daughter. Wachtler was arrested after an extensive ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 7
On July 7, 1995, more than 250 prisoners at the Sierra Conservation Center (SCC), near Jamestown, CA, engaged in a brawl and riot at the 5,900 bed minimum security prison. The fight took place in the yard and housing units between white and Latino prisoners and left many injured with ...
Derek Humphry, President of the Hemlock Society, and Judge Marilyn Hall Patel have differing views on the virtues of inhaling lethal gas. Humphry, in his how-to-suicide-it manual Final Exit, recommends the use of potassium cyanide as a quick and "humane", although not entirely peaceful, way of dying with dignity, which ...
by Mark Lopez and Kara Chayriques
In 1976, the Supreme Court established in Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976), that the government has an obligation to provide medical care for prisoners. This fundamental premise has been upheld in subsequent cases and establishes a prison's obligation to provide for prisoners' ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 10
On February 16, 1995, police ar rested a retired cop and three Arizona prison guards in the robbery of an armored car and the killing of a Wells Fargo driver. On November 28, 1994, an armored car was hijacked and robbed with between $200,000 and $900,000 taken. The armored car's ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 10
On August 15, 1995, Kim Sun Myung was released from a South Korean prison after spending more than 43 years in captivity. Kim had the unhappy distinction of being the world's longest held political prisoner. Kim was captured 43 years and ten months ago in 1951 by American military forces ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 11
- Prisoners Convicted by Drugging is conducting a survey to determine the number of criminal defendants who have gone to trial or been tried while they were under the influence of psychotropic drugs. Anyone desiring a questionnaire should write: B. Buechler, 825 Battery St. 1st Fl. San Francisco, CA. 94111. ...
In the August, 1995, issue of PLN we discussed the myriad anti-prisoner and -defendant legislation passed by the Washington State legislature in its 1995 session. The 1995 session was the longest in state history, running several months past its scheduled closing. Because the legislature squandered its time and resources on ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 12
On December 12, 1994, Stanley Watson died of a heart attack at the Washington State Reformatory (WSR) in Monroe, WA. While heart attacks do happen and can be fatal Watson's death could have been easily prevented, so easily that his death amounts to negligent homicide. On December 11, 1994, Watson ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 13
The court of appeals for the eighth circuit has held that in order to prevail on an eighth amendment deliberate indifference to serious medical needs claim, the prisoner plaintiff must submit verifying medical evidence at the summary judgment stage. Larry Beyerbach, a Missouri state prisoner, caught his hand in a ...
I would like to respond to a News in Brief segment of your February 1995 issue of PLN concerning the shipment of Alaska state prisoners to the Penal Detention Center [a private prison operated by the Corrections Corporation of America] in Florence, AZ, supposedly to ease overcrowding and avoid fines ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 14
Joining Wisconsin, Mississippi and Arizona the South Carolina DOC banned weight lifting in its prisons in early July, 1995. All weight lifting equipment was removed from that state's prisons and will be made available to prison guards and students at the state Criminal Justice Academy. Prior to this South Carolina ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 15
On June 28, 1995, two wings of Texas death row prisoners demonstrated for an hour against a scheduled execution. The prisoners shouted, set fires and banged on the bars. The execution was stayed by a court order. One hundred prisoners have been executed in Texas since 1982, by far more ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 15
In the July, 1994, issue of PLN we reported the saga of William Knapp, the chief psychologist of the Nevada DOC whose ambition was to open up a Western theme brothel. We mentioned the case, Knapp v. Miller, 843 F. Supp. 633 (DC NV 1993), as a somewhat humorous aside ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 15
The highest paid state employee in California isn't the governor, it is Darryl Andrade, a DOC lieutenant at the Avenal State Prison who earned gross wages of $108,989 in 1994. Andrade was one of 702 California prison guards, sergeants and lieutenants who made more than $75,000 in 1994. The DOC ...
The public pays $25,000 a year to keep each of Wisconsin's 9,500 adult prisoners locked away. Part of what society expects to get for that considerable investment is prisoners who are changed for the better by the time they get out.
One of the changes I've undergone during my stay ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 16
Recent issues of PLN have re ported on plans by the Alabama Department of Corrections to dress alleged exhibitionist prisoners in hot pink outfits, to reinstitute chain gangs and to chain those prisoners who refuse to work on the chain gangs to steel rails outdoors. Apparently these measures aren't enough ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 17
Over a fifth of male prisoners are sexually victimized behind bars according to a newly released survey of an entire state's prison system. A summary of results from the spring, 1994 survey, which covered all four Nebraska prisons and was conducted by University of South Dakota psychology professor Cindy Struckman-Johnson, ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 18
The Franklin County Court of Appeals in Ohio has held that an anonymous letter alleging drug smuggling by a prison visitor is insufficient to constitute "reasonable suspicion" which would authorize a strip search of the visitor. Terry Morris, the warden of the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, received an anonymous letter from ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 18
Lawyers from the ACLU's National Prison Project filed a motion in federal court on August 25, 1995, asking the judge to issue a preliminary injunction to end physical and sexual abuse of prisoners in Vermont's sex offender behavior modification program. Affidavits filed by several prisoners allege that a treatment provider ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 19
For two days in February, 1980, New Mexico prisoners seized control of the state penitentiary in Santa Fe. When it was over, 33 prisoners were dead, hundreds more were hurt, the gym was burned to a shell and the cell blocks, offices and other areas were extensively damaged. Elected and ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 19
The second circuit court of appeals has reaffirmed that prison disciplinary hearing officers are only entitled to qualified immunity, not absolute immunity from suit. As part of a pilot project the New York Department of Corrections in 1986 instituted the Inmate Hearing Officer program whereby the DOC hires private lawyers ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 20
The court of appeals for the tenth circuit has held that a district court erred when it dismissed a prisoner's suit as being time barred when it was not clear from the face of the complaint if the applicable time limits had been tolled. David Fratus, a Utah state prisoner, ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 20
The court of appeals for the eighth circuit has held that heightened judicial scrutiny may be appropriate in equal protection claims brought by female prisoners. This ruling will be of special interest to female prisoners. Women prisoners in Iowa filed a class action suit contending their right to equal protection ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 21
A district court in Illinois has held that pretrial detainees are entitled to clean linen and clothes on a regular basis as well as adequate ventilation, medical treatment and food. The court begins its ruling with a quote by Dr. Karl Menninger who described American jails, including he Cook County ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 22
PA: On August 2, 1995, SCI Graterford prison guards Keith Robertson and Martin Williams were arrested for drug possession with intent to deliver. Both guards were seen, during an investigation, dumping drugs behind vending machines and trash bins within the prison.
FL: Israel Martinez was charged with breaking into the ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 22
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) administratively abolished furloughs for prisoners on July 1, 1995. In doing so it acted three months before a recently enacted state law eliminated all the furloughs, effective September 1, 1995. Under the state law only emergency furloughs are allowed.
The furloughs being abolished ...
Loaded on
Nov. 15, 1995
published in Prison Legal News
November, 1995, page 23
The eleventh circuit court of appeals has reaffirmed that county officials can be held liable for failing to protect jail detainees from violence by other detainees. In 1990 Larry Hale was held in the Tallapoosa County Jail in Alabama after failing to appear in court on a marijuana charge. The ...
