The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed an immigration detainee’s $642,398.57 attorney fee award, finding that “the District Court’s degree of success inquiry under § 1988 was based on an impermissible reconstruction of the jury verdict.”

Hawa Abdi Jama, a Somalian immigrant and a Muslim, was detained as an illegal immigrant at an Elizabeth, New Jersey detention center operated by Esmor Correctional Services, Inc. (Esmor) for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

In 1997, Jama and 19 other detainees sued Esmor, INS and numerous individual defendants over abusive treatment and deplorable conditions at the facility. All of the plaintiffs except Jama settled the class-action suit for $2.5 million. [See: PLN, Sept. 2006, p.26; Sept. 1995, p.17].

In 2007, a jury trial was held on Jama’s claims. The jury ruled in her favor on her claim that the defendants substantially burdened her ability to practice her religion, in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq. The jury also ruled in her favor on a pendent state law claim that Esmor and other defendants had negligently hired, trained, supervised and/or retained guards at the privately-run facility. The jury awarded only nominal damages of $1 ...

A man who bilked almost $13 million from Cornell Corrections Corp. has been convicted of federal fraud and conspiracy charges, while two co-defendants pleaded guilty.
In February 2010, Robert B. Surles was convicted by a federal jury in Atlanta, Georgia of conspiracy and 15 counts of wire fraud as part of a construction scam.

Cornell hired Surles to build its Southern Peaks Regional Treatment Center in Colorado in 2003. The company transferred almost $13 million to an account where the funds were supposed to have been held in escrow, but Surles and his co-defendants gained control of the account and Surles spent $605,000 on himself. [See: PLN, April 2009, p.47].

“This defendant fraudulently induced a company to transfer approximately $13 million into an ‘escrow account’ that turned out to be nothing but a piggy bank for the defendant and his co-conspirators,” said U.S. Attorney Sally Q. Yates.

Surles’ co-defendants, Edgar J. Beaudreault, Jr. and Howard Sperling, took plea deals and testified against him. Surles was sentenced on June 22, 2010 to ten years in federal prison and three years’ supervised release. Beaudreault received a 37-month sentence plus three years’ supervised release, while Sperling was sentenced to almost 62 months and ...

The statute of limitations in a lawsuit claiming medical negligence by prison officials in delaying a prisoner’s surgery begins to accrue when the prisoner is first recommended for surgery by a specialist, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey decided on February 19, 2009.

Cecil Fearon, incarcerated at the East Jersey State Prison, sued Correctional Medical Services and five physicians for excessive delay in providing him with needed neck surgery. On April 28, 2004, Fearon was seen by a prison doctor and recommended for a consult with a neurosurgeon.

Fearon was seen by the neurosurgeon on June 22, 2004 and recommended for a cervical discectomy and fusion. No surgery was scheduled, however. Fearon was seen by the neurosurgeon again in April 2005, some ten months later, and again recommended for surgery. The surgery still was not scheduled until January 2006. The procedure was finally performed in January, but the delay caused Fearon’s condition to worsen and compromised the results of the surgery.

The defendants were successful in having the suit dismissed on statute of limitations grounds in Superior Court, arguing that the limitations period began to run on April 28, 2004 when Fearon was first seen by ...

by David M. Reutter

Traditionally, the role of a chaplain in the correctional setting is to serve as a spiritual advisor to prisoners and help them meet the requirements of their religious faiths. Equally traditionally, chaplains have generally been from conservative mainstream Christian faiths and often proselytize among prisoners for those faiths.

There is some debate as to whether it is proper to have government-paid chaplains at prisons and jails, based on the premise that such arrangements violate the principle of separation of church and state. There is also dispute concerning whether chaplains – who are overwhelmingly Christian – can adequately address the religious needs of prisoners with many diverse faiths, including Islam, Judaism, Native American beliefs, Hinduism and Buddhism, among others, to say nothing of agnostics and atheists.

However, there is universal agreement that prison and jail chaplains should not abuse their role as spiritual leaders and use their positions of authority to fulfill their own deviant sexual desires. Such abuses do occur, albeit not with the frequency that other correctional staff victimize prisoners. [See, e.g.: PLN, May 2009, p.1].

While incidents involving sexual mis-conduct by chaplains are not common, they are indicative of a somber incongruity between the ...

by Matt Clarke

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering whether to grant or loan $5 million to Webb County, Texas to build a new county jail. The USDA has already given Jim Hogg County, Texas $5 million to expand its jail – 25% as a loan and 75% as a grant.

Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar said the county needs a new jail because they are losing out on the opportunity to earn about $500,000 a year by housing federal prisoners.
The federal government often contracts with local jails to house prisoners, particularly immigration detainees, and some counties use contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service as a reliable source of income.

One complication in Sheriff Cuellar’s plan is the Rio Grande Detention Center, a 1,500-bed private prison in Laredo owned and operated by the GEO Group, a Florida-based company formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections. The Rio Grande facility opened in October 2008 following controversy over GEO’s record of alleged human rights abuses at some of the company’s other Texas prisons. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) operates the 480-bed Webb County Detention Center near Lardeo, too, which houses U.S. Marshals detainees and is another source of competition.

Funding for ...

A federal district court has awarded $850,000 to the family of a Delaware prisoner who hanged himself, after entering default judgment against First Correctional Medical, Inc. (FCM). In other Delaware news, the state’s prison system did not renew its contract with Correctional Medical Services (CMS).

In 1997, Christopher Barkes was ...

by Matt Clarke

On November 12, 2009, Pennsylvania state representative John M. Perzel was charged with 82 counts of theft, conflict of interest, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and hindering apprehension or prosecution as a result of Attorney General Tom Corbett’s long-running investigation into political corruption, nicknamed “Bonusgate.” Perzel, a Republican and former Speaker of the House, had for years been a member of the board of directors of GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest private prison firm.

Perzel, his brother-in-law, a nephew, two former chiefs of Perzel’s staff and five other people with ties to the Pennsylvania House GOP caucus (including two former district attorneys) were charged with spending around $10 million in state funds to develop advanced computer programs that were used by Republicans to give them an advantage during elections.

According to William Tomaselli, a state-paid special projects coordinator who was granted immunity by prosecutors, Perzel was aware that the programs were utilized to benefit GOP candidates. “The goal was to win elections. It was a campaign piece,” Tomaselli alleged.

Perzel has denied any criminal conduct and claims the charges are “political opportunism” by Corbett, a fellow Republican who is running for governor. Corbett countered that Perzel was the ...

The next lot in our auction is the Arizona prison system. Do I hear $100,000,000? What, no bidders? None? You, sir, Corrections Corporation of America, you must be interested. No? Okay. How about you, GEO Group? No, not interested either?

Prison privatization is not a new concept but efforts to privatize an entire prison system are rare – having been previously considered in only one state, Tennessee, more than a decade ago. [See: PLN, Sept. 1998, p.16]. However, last year Arizona lawmakers attempted to privatize most of that state’s prison system as they tried to close a whopping $4 billion budget deficit.

HB 2010, signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer on September 3, 2009, permitted the unprecedented sale of almost all of Arizona’s prisons. Under HB 2010, state prison officials were required to solicit bids for the operation of “one or more prison complexes” by private companies in return for an upfront payment of $100 million. The state would then lease the prisons back from the companies over a 20-year period, paying them to manage the facilities. The prison complex at Yuma was not subject to the law; it had been exempted at the insistence of a Yuma legislator. ...

by Matt Clarke

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for-profit prison company, already spends a significant amount of money courting federal agencies and members of Congress. CCA employs three lobbying firms in Washington D.C., spent about $1 million in lobbying on the federal level in 2009, and has its own Political Action Committee. CCA executives and employees have made over $135,000 in campaign donations to federal political candidates in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles.

Recently, though, Talking Points Memo, a news organization that specializes in reporting on government and political issues, found another way that CCA influences federal officials: Three former and current Congressional staffers with ties to U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, run an event-planning business that has accepted money from CCA to plan events honoring Thompson.

Dena Graziano, Rep. Thompson’s communication director since 2006, co-founded Chic Productions along with Michone Johnson, chief counsel for a House Judiciary subcommittee, and Michelle Persaud, a former House Judiciary Committee staffer. According to Chic’s website the company provides “high style events with simple elegance,” and congressional events make up about 90 percent of its business.

Lobbyist disclosure statements that reveal these types ...

by Matt Clarke

On May 20, 2010, a $2.9 million settlement was reached in a Pennsylvania federal civil rights lawsuit against GEO Group for performing suspicionless strip searches of people arrested for minor, non-violent, non-drug offenses.

Penny Allison inadvertently missed a scheduled court appointment finalizing her probation program in a ...