Oklahoma judges are pushing for larger fines imposed on criminal defendants to compensate for a shortfall in courthouse budgets.

The downturn in the economy has affected almost everyone, and the courts are no exception. Judges in Oklahoma have seen a 7 percent decrease in state funding for court operations. To deal with that shortfall, they are being encouraged to increase financial penalties and not forgive court costs. Further, offenders who receive probation are being required to pay larger fines.

The push to increase fines and ensure collection of court costs is being spearheaded by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. During workshops sponsored by the Supreme Court, judges have been encouraged to get “defendants to pay their fines, fees, and costs by credit card,” and to reject plea agreements that include low fines.

“I would suggest to you that a plea bargain that does not take into consideration the court which must accept it, ratify it and enforce it is one that should be looked at askance,” Chief Justice James E. Edmondson told judges in a pre-recorded video during the workshops.

Even crime victims are being put at the back of the line. During one workshop, judges were told they should reject ...

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison company, has lost or terminated contracts totaling 9,754 prison beds within an 18-month period, and is expected to lose at least 1,536 more contract beds by the end of this calendar year.

CCA announced on January 21, 2010 that based on the State of Arizona’s proposed budget, the company would lose its contracts to house Arizona prisoners at the company’s 752-bed Huerfano County Correctional Center in Colorado and its 2,160-bed Diamondback Correctional Facility in Oklahoma. Last year, CCA generated about $56.5 million in revenue from those contracts.

It has since been confirmed that the Huerfano contract, which expires in March 2010, will not be renewed; on March 4, CCA announced that the Diamondback facility would close within 60 days. Arizona officials have said they intend to return all of their prisoners from out-of-state facilities.

On January 13, 2010, CCA announced that the federal Bureau of Prisons had not renewed its contract to house prisoners at the company’s 2,304-bed California City Correctional Center. The contract, estimated at $553 million over ten years, instead went to competitor Cornell Corrections.

Previously, Alaska removed approximately 770 of its prisoners from CCA’s Red Rock facility ...

Morgan County, Missouri was in dire financial straits before contracting with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to house immigration detainees at the county’s jail. For a while things were great – Sheriff Jim Petty replaced his worn-out police cruisers with new SUVs, upgraded the local jail and hired more deputies with funds received under the ICE contract.

Ten years ago Morgan County was having budget problems. “We needed a way to generate income,” said Petty. That’s when the county went into the ICE detainee lock-up business. “It wasn’t hitting the jackpot ... but [the contract has] given us a little freedom to operate the way we ought to be,” he stated.

ICE paid the county $65 per day per prisoner, as opposed to the $45 per day paid by surrounding counties. However, with the contract came obligations. For example, ICE required upgrades such as a recreation area, a dietician and a full-time nurse. Further, the county spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to expand its jail by 130 new beds.

The facility averaged 45 ICE detainees a day in 2008 and netted $1.1 million in profit. But things have since changed. The detainee population has dropped to an average ...

When Brett A. Fields entered Florida’s Lee County Jail to be booked on charges of criminal mischief, violating an injunction and probation violation, he was a healthy 26-year-old man. Within a month, according to a subsequent lawsuit, he was paralyzed due to grossly inadequate medical care by Prison Health Services (PHS).

Several days after being booked into the jail in July 2007, Fields requested medical attention for a wound on his left arm. A PHS nurse observed a red, swollen and pus-filled boil that she identified as a furuncle – a boil caused by staphylococci. She treated it with Bactrim, an antibiotic.

Two weeks later the boil had not healed. Fields requested medical care via an “Inmate Medical Request Form,” which was ignored by PHS and jail staff. In early August 2007, he began suffering from severe back pains, difficulty walking, numbness, weakness in his lower extremities and other symptoms. His pleas for medical treatment on August 6 were ignored, even though he stated he was having difficulty moving and had not urinated in days.

The next evening, Fields was finally examined by a PHS nurse. He explained his infection history and symptoms. The nurse arranged for him to see ...

In June 2009, a District of Columbia jail sergeant and two lieutenants were placed on paid leave during an investigation into allegations that the sergeant paid a pimp to have sex with a jailed prostitute. One of the lieutenants was later fired for unrelated reasons.

Jessica Rubio, 32, is a self-described prostitute and drug addict. She was arrested for prostitution and incarcerated at the Correctional Treatment Center annex of the D.C. Jail in Washington, D.C. when corrections counselor Sgt. Aundra Powell allegedly paid her pimp $50 to have sex with her. The pimp gave Rubio a receipt, which she showed to Powell. Powell then reportedly took Rubio to a satellite kitchen and had sex with her. This occurred four times.

Rubio was released, but re-arrested and again convicted of prostitution in June 2009. At that time, D.C. Department of Corrections investigators questioned her about her relationship with Powell. After she told them about the paid sexual encounters, she was transferred to the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Virginia.

Powell, assistant shift supervisor Lt. Ricardo Rich and an unidentified substance abuse counselor were immediately placed on paid leave. Rich was fired for unrelated reasons in June 2009. The Treatment Center is managed ...

by David M. Reutter

The U.S. Department of Justice, through the Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, has brought stimulus money to Indian reservations – awarding $224 million to build and renovate tribal jails. The funding comes after years of unsuccessful lobbying efforts by Native American leaders.

The Justice Department is responsible for building detention facilities on land overseen by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), which is responsible for running the facilities as part of its mission to carry out the federal government’s trust responsibility to Native Americans. The jails only house misdemeanants, as felonies are prosecuted in federal court.

The problems faced by tribal officials are many and substantial, and the Navajo Nation, located on a 27,000-square mile reservation that straddles Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, is illustrative.

Navajo officials say they are dealing with record-high gang activity and are battling chronic alcoholism and substance abuse that make domestic violence and drunk driving offenses common. With only 59 jail beds available in the Navajo Nation for almost 56,000 arrestees a year, the tribal jails have revolving doors.

“We’re always playing musical chairs – or musical jails beds,” said Delores Greyeyes, head of the Navajo Nation’s Department of ...

Ashley Ellis’ misdemeanor arrest turned into a death sentence. Her crime was careless and negligent operation of a motor vehicle. On Aug. 16, 2009, less than two days after she began a 30-day sentence at Vermont’s only prison for women, she died from the careless and negligent operation of a privatized, for-profit prison health care system.

“It is a pretty blatant and obvious and extreme case of gross negligence,” said Seth Lipschutz, supervising attorney at the Vermont Defender General’s office. “We figured out in a day that they killed her.”

In January 2010, when Tennessee-based Prison Health Services (PHS) left Vermont under a cloud, the state hired the fifth private company in 14 years to run its prison health care system. The contract was expanded to absorb mental health functions.

Vermont’s serial contracts with for-profit corporations follow a nationwide pattern: Oversight is flawed, prisoner care is stingy, contractors are indifferent to or insulated from lawsuits, and states switch providers when trouble hits. Meanwhile, a fundamental conflict remains: A for-profit system thrives by cutting costs and services, while sound prisoner and public health care principles demand that careful medicine comes first.

Ashley Ellis’ tragic death throws the nature of this conflict ...

Ninth Circuit: 42 U.S.C. § 233(a) Does Not Immunize Public Health Service Employees from Bivens Constitutional Tort Claims

by John E. Dannenberg

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has held that 42 U.S.C. § 233(a), which at first blush seems to exempt officers and employees of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) from exposure to Bivens civil rights suits, in fact does not – so long as the suit involves a constitutional tort.

This complex question arose in the damages phase of a lawsuit involving the outrageously cruel denial of medical care to Francisco Castaneda, an illegal immigrant detainee who was held in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). [See: PLN, Sept. 2008, p.32]. PHS was implicated because medical care for ICE detainees falls under the aegis of PHS.

The issue raised in the U.S. District Court, Castaneda v. United States, 538 F.Supp.2d 1279 (C.D. Cal. 2008), was whether the ability of Castaneda’s survivors to bring suit under Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971) – a federal civil rights claim – was foreclosed due to language in 42 U.S.C. § 233(a) that immunizes employees of PHS from suit. The district court held that § ...

In June 2009, the District Attorney’s office in Santa Barbara, California filed charges against Roland Ygelsias and Miguel Jacobo, former employees of U.S. Extradition Services, a company that contracts with law enforcement agencies to transport prisoners to and from prisons and jails.

Ygelsias and Jacobo were accused of engaging in illegal sexual activity in October 2008 with a female prisoner they were transporting from Chowchilla State Prison to the Santa Barbara County Jail. Ygelsias, 29, was charged with one count of forcible oral copulation, which is classified as both a violent and serious felony under California law, and a misdemeanor count of sexual activity with a prisoner in a detention facility. Jacobo, 28, was accused of only the misdemeanor violation.

Ygelsias was terminated after being charged, while Jacobo resigned. They had worked for the company for less than six months.

The few details that emerged were sordid. Ygelsias reportedly received oral sex from a female prisoner he had picked up at Chowchilla; the sex act occurred in a van that was transporting seven offenders, some male and some female. The victim alleged that Ygelsias sat next to her in the front bench seat of the van. He then unzipped his ...

On September 13, 2009, the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) reached a settlement with the parents of an Idaho state prisoner who was driven to suicide by squalid conditions at a GEO Group-run private prison in Texas, where he had been transferred. The IDOC agreed to pay the prisoner’s estate ...