FW: Crime & Justice News: Suit Challenges Long-Term Isolation of CA Inmates
Dianne Tramutola-Lawson
From: Ted Gest [mailto:rob...@mn-8.ccsend.com] On Behalf Of Ted Gest
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2012 9:48 AM
Subject: Crime & Justice News: Suit Challenges Long-Term Isolation of CA Inmates
June 1, 2012 Today's Stories -- Federal Suit Challenges Long-Term Inmate Isolation in CA Prisons -- Unions Ask Judge to Block Privatization of Florida Prison Health Care -- Mistrial of Edwards Another Setback for Justice's Public Integrity Unit -- Increasingly, PA Candidates Must Go Through Court to Get on Ballot -- NJ Democrats Reject Gov. Christie's Second Supreme Court Nominee -- 5 Years After Inception, Atlanta's Police Review Board Struggles -- Nearing Parole, Ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham Wants His Guns Back -- Amid Service Cuts, Advocates See Surge of Mentally Ill in CA Prisons -- Brooklyn Judge: Prosecutors, Mandatory Minimums Usurp Judicial Authority -- Memphis Rape Center Focuses on Human Body as Crime Scene -- Under Financial Duress, Oregon Jail Releases Whooping Inmates -- Charlotte Police Expand Electronic Monitoring; 400 Now e-Tethered On every business day, Criminal Justice Journalists (CJJ) provides a summary of the nation's top crime and justice news stories with Internet links, if any. Crime & Justice News is being provided by CJJ with the support of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, its Center on Media, Crime and Justice, the Ford Foundation, and the National Criminal Justice Association. The news digest is edited by Ted Gest and David Krajicek. You may go to TheCrimeReport.org to search all archived CJN stories. Please e-mail Ted Gest at CJJ with concerns about the editorial content of our news items, to suggest news stories, or with general comments. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ California's practice of isolating prison inmates it suspects of gang affiliations and keeping them that way for years is being challenged in federal court by a national civil rights group, reports the Los Angeles Times. Inmate advocates say California is the only state that makes such extensive, harsh use of solitary confinement, which amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The inmates are segregated based on thin evidence and prevented from seeking parole, the advocates say, and their isolation leads to mental and medical problems. The lawsuit was filed Thursday by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. The lawsuit focuses on about 300 inmates who have been held in Pelican Bay State Prison's Security Housing Unit for more than a decade. Most are alone in their windowless cells, allowed out only to shower or exercise in a small concrete yard known as the "dog run." They're allowed one package a year and almost no phone calls, the lawsuit says. Prison officials said they were examining their policies on how inmates are placed in the security unit, and a spokesman defended the practice as necessary to handle safety problems in a prison system rife with gangs. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Two unions are challenging Florida Gov. Rick Scott's plan to save money by privatizing health care to the state's 100,000 inmates, reports the Miami Herald. The state has already hired two out-of-state firms to do the work at a minimum cost savings of 7 percent a year. But with hundreds of union jobs at stake, the Florida Nurses Association and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees say the privatization plan is unconstitutional and want Circuit Judge Kevin Carroll to block its implementation. The 2011 Legislature mandated the privatization through the use of budget language known as proviso.The unions say that's a violation of the state Constitution, and that a policy change must be enacted through a separate piece of legislation. Scott's administration lost a similar case last summer, when a union for correctional officers successfully challenged another proviso that ordered the privatization of nearly 30 prisons in 18 South Florida counties. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The mistrial declaration in John Edwards' campaign finance case was a new setback for the Justice Department's public integrity section, a once-vaunted watchdog that has been trying to rebuild itself after its botched prosecution of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens four years ago, says the New York Times. A jury acquitted Edwards of one charge and failed to reach a verdict on five others. It was the second time this year that one of the section's high-profile prosecutions has collapsed. In March, a jury acquitted defendants charged in connection with an alleged bribery and corruption scheme involving an effort to legalize some forms of gambling there. The two failed cases were the most nationally visible efforts in recent years by the public integrity section, which was criticized in 2012 after closing out, with bringing charges in a series of investigations of current or former members of Congress, including Senator John Ensign of Nevada and Representatives Tom DeLay of Texas, Jerry Lewis of California, Allan B. Mollohan of West Virginia and Don Young of Alaska. The unit's performance has been faulted by nonprofit groups that seek to limit the influence of money in politics. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pennsylvania candidates are increasingly turning to the courts to settle election disputes -- and vanquish opponents, reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. State court administrators reported on Thursday that Commonwealth Court, which deals with election disputes involving candidates for a state office or higher, has handled a record 131 election cases this year. That tops the previous high of 117 in 2006. Lawyers and judges named various reasons for the increase, including better access to voter registration databases and a shift to have more lawyers involved in the process. "What I've seen over the last 12 years is that campaigns are using it as an offensive tool -- the courts and existing law -- to strike their opponent off the ballot," said attorney and county councilwoman Heather Heidelbaugh, who works in election law and is the co-chair of the Republican National Lawyers Association. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The New Jersey Senate judiciary committee on Thursday rejected by a 7-6 vote Gov. Chris Christie's second state Supreme Court nominee in 70 days, reports the Newark Star-Ledger. Democrats said they voted down Chatham Borough Mayor Bruce Harris - a Republican who would have been the first openly gay and third African-American justice on the state Supreme Court - because he has no courtroom experience. Christie said he would keep nominating Republicans to the seven-member court that now has only five justices - expecting that they'll keep getting defeated by Democrats. "The very fact that Bruce Harris was sacrificed in the name of politics is a dishonor to this institution and once again they've smeared a good person, his career, his character and his experience," Christie said after Thursday's five-hour hearing. "So for the second time in a row, the Senate Democrats have made a mockery of the process, of the court and the good individuals who agreed to put themselves up for nomination in the name of serving their state." | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Atlanta Citizen Review Board, created five years ago amid outrage after police killed a 92-year-old woman during a botched raid then tried to cover it up, is at a critical point in its rocky existence, reports the city's Journal-Constitution. The board was given investigators, subpoena power and a mandate to provide a credible, independent and "safe and welcoming place" to bring complaints and accusations of misconduct and abuse by public safety officials. But the board is threatened by resistance from the police force, an apparent lack of interest from city government, internal board politics and a damaged public image. The board is supposed to have 11 members appointed by neighborhood planning units, lawyers' groups, the City Council and the mayor. But it's been operating with only 10 members for the past seven months, awaiting a new appointee by the mayor. Strain on its members is showing more and more in meetings that sometimes disintegrate into name calling, the decision to hire and then not hire a former federal prosecutor as the ACRB's second executive director, and public complaints that the board seems too concerned with placating the police department and is sacrificing transparency. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Months away from parole, former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California wrote to a federal judge earlier this month asking help to get his rights to carry a gun restored, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. But the plea, made in a rambling and sometimes disconsolate letter sent to Judge Larry A. Burns on May 2, was for naught. Burns, who sentenced Cunningham to eight years and four months in prison in 2006, replied he had no power to help him. The correspondence is the latest missive from the Tucson, Ariz., federal prison where Cunningham has been serving his sentence. The former Republican congressman pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion and admitted to receiving gifts, cash and fancy trips from defense contractors in exchange for steering government work their way. Since his imprisonment he has denied taking bribes and said he regretted his plea. In the letter he said he is scheduled to be released to a halfway house in December. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With the percentage of state prison inmates with mental illnesses rising, many of those convicts deemed incompetent to stand trial are languishing in California jail cells for months as they wait for state hospital beds to open up, reports the Sacramento Bee. Advocates blame state and county budget cuts to mental health programs, combined with prison realignment and a shrinking number of state hospital beds. State prison inmates with mental illnesses increased from 19 percent in 2007 to 25 percent in 2012. In many counties, seriously mentally ill inmates routinely wait three to six months in jail before a state hospital bed opens up, said Randall Hagar of the California Psychiatric Association. He calls the situation, which he says has gotten worse in recent years, "tragic." In Stanislaus County, the numbers of mentally ill inmates in the local jail increased nearly 50 percent in the past six years, according to sheriff's department data. In recent years, counties around California have been severely hit by budget cuts to mental health services. From 2009 to 2012, California has reduced mental health funding by $765 million, more than a fifth of its mental health budget. As funds and services have disappeared, the number of people with mental illness landing behind bars has surged. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ John Gleeson, a U.S. District Court judge in Brooklyn, has never been shy about meting out tough sentences, says Adam Liptak in the New York Times. "Most people, including me," he wrote in a 2010 decision, "agree that the kingpins, masterminds and midlevel managers of drug trafficking enterprises deserve severe punishment." But he has lately been saying that prosecutors' insistence on mandatory minimum sentences for minor players in the drug trade has warped the criminal justice system and robbed judges of sentencing authority. Gleeson recently considered the fate of Jamel Dossie, whom he called "a young, small-time, street-level drug dealer's assistant." Dossie was an intermediary in four hand-to-hand crack sales, for which he made a total of about $140. Two of the sales exceeded, barely, the 28-gram threshold that allows prosecutors to call for a mandatory five-year sentence. The prosecutors' decision to invoke the law calling for a mandatory sentence in Dossie's case meant Gleeson had no choice but to send Dossie away for five years. Had his hands not been tied, Judge Gleeson wrote, "there is no way I would have sentenced" Dossie to so long a sentence. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Memphis Commercial Appeal profiles the city's Rape Crisis Center, in its 37th year of operation. Unlike many other cities where victims are taken to hospital emergency rooms, Memphis uses the center to conduct medical examinations after sexual assaults. Formerly called the Memphis Sexual Assault Resource Center, the facility allows victims to walk in to report a crime or come via police escort after making a report. Emergency services are always available at no cost to the victim. In a rape investigation, the paper says, the crime scene is a human body. Sexual assault victims aren't required to undergo medical exams after reporting a crime, but local officials are stressing the importance of obtaining DNA evidence in light of several recent charges against rape suspects. Anna Whalley, director of the center, said victims have 72 Eto come in before DNA evidence is lost. arlier this month, Memphis police a 41-year-old man on charges stemming from a 2010 rape. Police linked the man through his DNA to at least five other rapes -- one of a child -- over a seven-year span in the same area. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dozens of inmates ran whooping from a small-town jail Wednesday after a cash-strapped county in Oregon's timber region was forced to release them amid budget cuts, reports the Associated Press. The sheriff's office released 39 inmates, dropping the population at the jail in Grants Pass to 60 - half of them federal prisoners held on contract. "We had no other alternative based on our funding predicament," said Josephine County Undersheriff Don Fasching. About half of those released will finish their sentences on work crews. The rest were waiting for trial. The most common charges were for drug crimes, minor assaults, burglary, identity theft and probation violations. The sheriff's office was forced to cut staffing to levels not seen since 1991 after voters emphatically turned down a $12 million levy to plug a gap left by the expiration of federal timber subsidies. Since then, applications for concealed weapons permits have skyrocketed, many taken by people concerned that the sheriff's cuts will lead to a rise in crime. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Charlotte police have expanded their $35,000-a-month electronic monitoring program significantly since its start in 2007 and now keep tabs on about 400 people at any given time, reports the city's Observer. Police praise the devices as both a crime-solving tool and an outreach tool for young offenders. The benefits of the monitors include the ability to match crime locations with suspects. The program was created five years ago, prompted by an increase in robberies. Although the majority of monitor wearers today are facing robbery and burglary charges, police have begun adding some domestic violence and sex assault offenders to ensure they avoid their victims. Police can use the monitors to establish zones where the offender cannot go. If he or she crosses into that area - usually a set distance from the victim's home or workplace - the monitor will alert police. | |
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