| Prison Legal News, a monthly print publication that covers criminal justice issues, is a project of the Human Rights Defense Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. |
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FCC made a case for limiting cost of prison phone calls, but not anymore Federal regulators no longer are pressing to cut the costs of most prison phone calls, backing away from a years-long effort to limit charges imposed by a handful of private companies on inmates and their families. The shift by the Federal Communications Commission comes as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Monday considers whether commissioners went too far when they capped prices for inmate calls that had reached more than a $1 per minute. But a week after President Donald Trump tapped a new leader for the FCC, the commission's attorneys changed course and told the court that the FCC no longer would defend one of its own key provisions that limited fees for prisoners' intrastate calls. The issue set for court Monday was first raised more than 15 years ago by a retired nurse in the District who could not afford to call her incarcerated grandson. Because the FCC is no longer defending a key provision of its own rule, the court has provided additional time Monday for arguments from attorney Andrew Jay Schwartzman, who represents inmate advocates, including the D.C. Prisoners' Legal Services Project and the Human Rights Defense Center. HRDC's Carrie Wilkinson will be attending oral argument before the DC Court of Appeals. Read More |
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Go to Jail. Die From Drug Withdrawal. Welcome to the Criminal Justice System. When Tyler Tabor was booked in a jail outside Denver on a spring afternoon in 2015, he told a screening nurse that he was a daily heroin user and had a prescription for Xanax. A friendly, outdoorsy 25-year-old with a son in kindergarten, Tabor had started using opioids after he injured his back on the job as a welder. When he was arrested on two misdemeanor warrants, his parents decided not to pay his $300 bail, thinking he would be safer in jail and away from heroin for a few days. Three days later, Tabor died of dehydration at the Adams County jail, according to a coroner's report. The alleged cause: drug withdrawal. A lawsuit filed by the Tabors against the county and Corizon Health, the jail's private health care provider, describes in chilling detail the three days of missed opportunities and seemingly callous medical care. It draws on video footage, some of which is shown below, from a surveillance camera in Tabor's cell. By the end of the first day in jail, Tabor was in the throes of severe withdrawal: vomiting, diarrhea, low blood pressure. He was too dehydrated to provide a urine sample. A day later, he could no longer walk or unclench his fingers. When a nurse came by to give him the usual withdrawal medications-a cocktail of things like Gatorade and Pepto Bismol-he fell to the ground, trembling. Later that night, he begged for an IV-he knew from a previous detox that withdrawing from the combination of heroin, an opioid, and Xanax, a benzodiazepine, was particularly risky. But, according to the complaint, he was told IVs were only used when "absolutely necessary." He died six hours later, leaving behind a wife and a five-year-old son. "A simple IV would have almost certainly saved his life," reads the complaint. Read More |
| Beyond the Bars of Hopelessness: How We Can Revive Parole A newly released Sentencing Project report, "Delaying a Second Chance: The Declining Prospects for Parole on Life Sentences", lays it on the line: Incarcerated people who have been sentenced to "life" but are eligible for parole are serving excessive sentences. This is the case in spite of the fact that research shows that lifers are extremely unlikely to be rearrested if released. At the Women's March in Washington on January 21, 2017, Donna Hylton, a New York justice activist and formerly incarcerated woman, "inmate 86G0206," declared to the crowd that she was marching for all the women still incarcerated and standing up for those who are tossed aside and told they have no voice. She said, "Today we are marching in solidarity to change that narrative." Changing that narrative is key to changing policies related to parole. Giovanni Reid, who has been incarcerated 25 years, since he was 16, indicated in a phone interview from Graterford Prison that he, too, hopes to change how those with life sentences are viewed. Reid, convicted of second-degree murder, is from Pennsylvania, which, according to an ABC news report, tops the nation in the number of youth with such sentences. Reid is one of the state's 516 juveniles, originally sentenced to life without parole (JLWOP). Pennsylvania has almost 20 percent of the 2500 JLWOP cases from across the country affected by Miller v. Alabama, the 2012 landmark US Supreme Court case that held that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional for youth. This convergence of science and law is due to emerging understandings in neurosceience about how the particular brains of teens are still developing (though, of course, adults also continue learning and changing throughout their lives). Reid spoke on Juvie Podcast about "chomping at the bit": the stress of waiting for a year to hear more about his status; and desperately wanting to believe his reentry work, programs and education behind bars will pay off and he won't have to serve more time. He told Truthout, "No matter how it goes, I'll be home this year." Read More |
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CLE Seminar: Representing Victims of Law Enforcement Misconduct West Palm Beach, Florida March 2-3, 2017 Human Rights Defense Center and National Police Accountability Project will be hosting a day and a half CLE seminar on representing the victims of law enforcement misconduct. Presented by some of the best civil rights lawyers in the country it's a great chance to learn more about this critical area of the law and held in sunny West Palm Beach Florida it's an opportunity to escape from the cold and snow if you live in well, a cold and snowy place. The South Florida-based Human Rights Defense Center in collaboration with the National Police Accountability Project are offering a two-day CLE seminar at the Marriott Hotel in West Palm Beach, Florida, with a full seminar day on Thursday, March 2 and a half day on Friday, March 3. HRDC and NPAP have secured a fantastic room rate of $185 per night at the Marriott where the seminar will be held, a bargain for a winter getaway in Florida. The hotel is in close proximity to numerous beaches, and we hope that those of you in less-than-temperate winter environments will consider escaping the cold with us. And if your family is jealous of your respite, consider bringing them along! More Info Here Visit the Facebook Event Page |
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From the PLN in Print Archives Imprisoned Author Denied Access to His Own Published Writing In order to survive being subjected to nearly three decades of solitary confinement, William "Billy" Blake turned to reading and, more importantly, writing. "A Sentence Worse than Death" is an essay Blake wrote for inclusion in an anthology of narratives about solitary entitled Hell is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement. The book was screened by the Facility Media Review Committee (FRMC) at the Great Meadow Correctional Facility where Blake is housed and, like thousands of other books sent to prisoners across the country, was deemed detrimental to the prison's security. Jean Casella, the book's co-editor and co-director of Solitary Watch, reported on September 20, 2016 that Blake had been denied access to his own writing. According to the FRMC's Inmate Disposition Notice, Hell is a Very Small Place is a "[p]ublication which incites disobedience towards law enforcement officers or prison personell [sic], presents clear and immediate risk of lawlessness, violence, anarchy, or rebellion agianst [sic] governmental authority." The notice flagged 14 pages in the book. Surprisingly, three pages of Blake's own essay were determined to be too dangerous for him to read. According to Blake's correspondence with Solitary Watch, he was instructed to transfer the book to a visitor or have it destroyed. He commented, "All my essay does is tell of my life in the box, what I've seen, what I've been through, what I've felt." He added, "That essay is about as gentle as I could be." Read More |
Photos of maximum-security prisons in Norway and the US reveal the extremes of prison life Inside the walls of the toughest prison in the US, a fork is a deadly weapon. Inside the walls of Norway's toughest prison, a fork is, well ... a fork. The differences extend far past silverware. In just about every way, the approaches that the US and Norway take to criminal justice fall on opposite ends of the spectrum. While the US uses isolation to punish offenders and keep them away from civil society, Norway prefers to rehabilitate its inmates so they can return to the outside world - there are no life sentences. No two prisons make that difference more clear than the super-max Administrative Security Facility, or ADX Florence, in Florence, Colorado and Halden Prison, in Halden, Norway. Not all US prisons are as strict as ADX, and while Halden is technically maximum-security, it's still closer to the rule than the exception in Norway. Here's what life is like at both extremes. View the Gallery Here |
New York: Correction boss reminds jail staff they can use force to stop inmate violence Note to jail staff: You can use force on inmates to thwart violent attacks in city jails. City Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte reminded jail bosses in an unusual memo that officers can use force to break up fights and slashing attacks behind bars. The Daily News obtained a copy of the "teletype order" sent to commanding officers last week. "In recent weeks staff have encountered inmates in possession of weapons who were attempting to or who have caused injury to another inmate and were refusing orders to cease their actions and drop their weapon," Ponte says in the memo. "All staff are reminded that force may be used against an inmate." Ponte said officers can use force when they need to defend themselves or to prevent an escape. They can also use force to stop inmates from damaging property or harming themselves. But physical force should only be used as a last resort "and when there is no practical alternative available to prevent serious physical injury," the order says. Read More |
NY prison authorities punish Jalil Muntaqim for teaching young prisoners to end 'tribal warfare' Former Black Panther Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom) was transferred from Attica Correctional Facility to Southport Correctional Facility, a notorious supermax prison just south of Elmira, New York, in early January. "This is clearly a punitive transfer," Anne Lamb told the Militant Jan. 11. "It also means he's much farther away from his legal advisers in Buffalo." Lamb is a spokesperson for the Jericho Movement, a group that Muntaqim helped found, which works to win amnesty for political prisoners. Muntaqim was put in solitary confinement at Attica on Dec. 6 and then sentenced to four months of solitary. In a letter to supporters, Muntaqim explained that during a class he was teaching to fellow inmates on Black History he had stated that gangs need to "get organized, get away from criminal behavior and tribal warfare." Prison officials twisted the comments to find him guilty of encouraging others "to engage in gang activities," "violent conduct," and encouraging other inmates to participate in a work-stoppage or "other actions which may be detrimental to the order of [the] facility." They dismissed initial charges of making a speech "without authorization" and "unauthorized organizational activities." Read More |
Guilty Until Proven Innocent Two men are convicted of a brutal gang rape they say they didn't commit and DNA backs them up - can a college professor, her students and new DNA technology clear them? *** For nearly two decades, Sally Glenn went to prison every other weekend to visit her son, Roosevelt. "It would hurt me. And when we'd leave there I would cry," she told "48 Hours" correspondent Maureen Maher. Roosevelt Glenn's daughter, Darniese, who was just 7 when her father went to prison, was often by her grandmother's side on those visits. "I was nervous for him due to the fact I knew he was a very innocent man behind bars with very bad criminals," she said."I had suicide all over me ... for a while," Roosevelt Glenn said in tears. "And what stopped you?" Maher asked. "I believe it was the power of God," Glenn said. "I was a good man before I went to prison, but I wasn't a man of faith. Prison changed my way of thinking and it made me a man of faith." Darryl Pinkins was also in prison. "How do you survive in that environment?" Maher asked Pinkins. "You have to become ... colder, as far as emotions," he said, "because I don't trust people like I used to." "I don't know if they realize you've pretty much taken the most valuable thing people have... time," Pinkins' son, Dameon, said. "I feel like I've lost the most important time of my life, where -- a son bonds with his father and becomes a man." Read More |
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