Billionaire-Funded California Voter Initiative Triples Lifer Parole Denial Intervals, Imposes Restrictions on Parole Violators

In the November 2008 elections, California voters narrowly passed Proposition 9 by a 53 to 47% margin. Prop. 9 was a state Initiative Act that 1) tripled the statutory intervals permitted by the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) when denying parole to life-sentenced prisoners, and 2) countered a recent U.S. District Court ruling that guaranteed legal representation and prompt revocation hearings for parole violators.

Seductively labeled on the ballot as a “victim’s rights” act, Prop. 9 was bankrolled almost entirely by billionaire Henry T. Nicholas III, whose 21-year-old sister, Marsy Leach, was murdered in 1983 by a former boyfriend. Notwithstanding that Marsy’s killer died in prison years ago, Prop. 9 was in reality a posthumous blanket decree designed to punish all of California’s 120,000 parolees and 30,000 life-sentenced prisoners.

But in what can only be characterized as poetic justice, Nicholas was himself recently indicted on 21 federal charges that include stock fraud, conspiracy, pimping, perjury, drugging friends’ and prostitutes’ cocktails, and having a warehouse of drugs. He faces up to 340 years in prison and is scheduled to go to trial in late 2009.

The Tentacles ...

Caging Kids for Cash: Two Pennsylvania Judges Guilty of Selling Out Juvenile Justice System

by Matt Clarke

Judges are supposed to be the protectors of our constitutional rights. They are expected to be fair and impartial, and to safeguard vulnerable members of society who are unable to protect themselves. Admitting to a shocking breach of this sacred trust, in January 2009 two Luzerne County, Pennsylvania judges entered guilty pleas to federal charges related to their acceptance of $2.6 million in kickbacks.

The payments were for their help in arranging the construction of private juvenile facilities, eliminating a county-owned and operated juvenile prison, obtaining a favorable contract for the private facilities, and incarcerating juvenile offenders accused of minor crimes in the private, for-profit prisons.

On January 21, 2009, Luzerne County President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella, Jr., 58, and Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan, 56, entered conditional guilty pleas to the charges contained in a 22-page criminal information. The plea agreement requires them to resign from their positions, pay an undisclosed amount of restitution, and serve 87 months in prison. Both remain free on $1,000,000 unsecured bonds pending formal guilty pleas and sentencing. See: United States v. Ciavarella and Conahan, U.S.D.C. (MD ...

California County’s 2005 Purchase of Private Prison Still Clouded in Conflict of Interest Questions

by Marvin Mentor

Investigative journalism by the San Bernardino Daily Bulletin has revealed that the April 2005, $31.2 million purchase of a private prison by San Bernardino County remains under a conflict-of-interest cloud because the lobbyist who represented both the buyer and seller allegedly did not fully disclose his dual relationship at the time.

The Victor Valley Modified Community Correctional Facility, located in Adelanto, was owned by Maranatha Corrections, LLC. The company’s consultant, former state Assemblyman and Board of Prisons Terms member Brett Granlund, also served as a lobbyist for the county. Maranatha founder Terry Moreland reportedly failed to disclose this conflict of interest to county officials at the time of the private prison sale.

The conflict question was subsequently assigned to independent attorney Leonard Gumport, who found that Granlund’s involvement in the sale was “minimal” and he had no influence on the purchase negotiations. Although the parties insist there was no wrongdoing regarding the sale of the prison, Gumport’s report has never been made public. [See: PLN, Dec. 2007, p.15; Jan. 2006, p. 20].

The private prison had been built on spec by Moreland, who ...

by Matt Clarke

In July 2008, Louisiana-based private prison company LCS Corrections Services agreed to remove junked cars, appliances and other debris inhibiting the flow of Petronila Creek, which runs close to LCS’s newly-built 1,100-bed Coastal Bend Detention Center near Robstown, Texas.

The company had applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for a permit to discharge up to 150,000 gallons a day of treated wastewater into the creek.
The permit was opposed by residents, especially those from nearby Lost Creek colonia, because the creek already had putrid, stagnant water and tended to flood due to blockages.
A colonia is an unincorporated, often impoverished community in the southwest, usually without potable water, sewage systems or paved roads.

Although water tests had not shown high levels of E. coli bacteria, Lost Creek residents complained that the creek water sickened both community members and livestock. The contamination may have resulted from people dumping animal carcasses into the creek, or from brine pits and brine injection wells located close by. The creek tested high for chlorides, sulfates and total dissolved solids. State agencies had refused to clear the creek’s flow obstructions because it cuts through private property and was not considered ...

$75,000 Settlement in Utah Jail Prisoner’s Suicide

Officials at the Salt Lake City Jail settled a lawsuit involving a prisoner’s suicide for $75,000. The settlement came in the hanging death of Arthur Henderson.

When he was booked on January 28, 2006, Henderson revealed he was depressed and had suicidal ideations, ...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that a federal prisoner incarcerated at a privately operated prison may not pursue a Bivens action against private prison employees for violating his Eighth Amendment rights.

Luis Francisco Alba, a federal prisoner incarcerated at the McRae Correctional Institution in McRae, Georgia, filed a pro se civil rights complaint claiming deliberately indifferent medical care. McRae is owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) under contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

According to his complaint, Alba underwent surgery for a benign goiter in his throat while at McRae. He alleged that the surgery damaged his vocal cords, and that despite repeated requests he was not given appropriate post-operative treatment. Alba sued several individual CCA employees, including the warden and other health services staff, but not CCA corporate.

He specifically alleged that prison employees, acting pursuant to CCA policy, had refused to schedule thyroplasty surgery – a corrective procedure recommended by a throat specialist. Alba contended that CCA employees did not authorize the surgery based on a CCA policy that considered the surgery “elective” in order to curtail medical costs. Alba sought monetary damages and an order directing prison ...

Economic Crisis Prompts Prison Closures Nationwide, but Savings (and Reforms) are Elusive

by David M. Reutter

With the current economic crisis adversely affecting state tax revenues, lawmakers across the nation are seeking ways to cut costs and slash spending. Many states have proposed reducing their prison budgets by closing correctional facilities; however, by shuffling prisoners to other locations rather than releasing them, this amounts to little more than a shell game.

Further, politicians, guards’ unions and local businesses often protest the potential loss of jobs from prison closures, which they say will hurt the local economy. The result is that when prisons close, most of the affected employees are moved to other facilities and few are actually laid off.

The main benefit of proposed prison closures appears to be the stoking of public fear over the mere suggestion of releasing prisoners and losing prison jobs – which translates to a greater willingness to cut costs in other areas. Apparently our society is so vested in prisons as sources of employment and revenue that closing them is extremely unpopular and releasing prisoners early practically impossible.

When the Unites States was facing an economic crunch in the 1980s, rural economies that relied ...

A “secret” Missouri surgeon who has supervised 54 prisoner executions had his cover pulled and suffered immediate peer criticism, court restriction, and a media barrage. In tension were the Hippocratic Oath of doctors to sustain the life of their patients, doctor oversight of the dirty work of Missouri Department of Corrections’ (MDOC) executions, and prisoners’ rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. The doctor unavailingly attempted to distance himself by merely setting up the lethal injection execution mechanism, while employing a non-doctor assistant to start the flow of drugs. He defensively answered reporters’ questions, “Read my lips. I don’t do them.” But the details came to a head in U.S. District Court during a challenge to allegedly unconscionable pain during botched executions, wherein the court found the shaky process so troubling that it ordered them halted.

Dr. Alan R. Doerhoff, 62, has been a contract general surgeon with MDOC since 1969. But on the outside, his checkered career netted him at least 20 malpractice suits, and his failure to properly disclose these suits led to his loss of medical practice privileges at two Missouri hospitals. In 1989, when MDOC switched to lethal injection for its executions, Dr. Doerhoff ...

On April 16, 2001, the City of Delta Junction, Alaska agreed to settle a suit brought by prison officials over a failed attempt to construct a private prison at Fort Greely, Alaska.

After Fort Greely was slated for closing by a military base closing commission, Delta Corrections Group (DCG) made ...

A New Jersey appeals court has reversed a lower courts dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a former prison health care worker.

Angela Hoag was a licensed social worker employed by Correctional Medical Services, Inc. and worked at Southern State Correctional Facility (SSCF). Hoag sued under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD) and New Jersey Tort Claims Act (TCA).

The lawsuit stems from mental, verbal, and physical abuse she was subjected to by Richard Sheppard, a guard at SSCF. Sheppard already had an extensive disciplinary record, including numerous suspensions. According to the SSCF Assistant Supervisor, Sheppard has been getting away with similar behavior for over twenty years.

As a result of Sheppard’s actions, Hoag sought treatment and was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and major depression for which she was prescribed medication.

The lower court dismissed the LAD claim because Hoag was not a state employee. The TCA claim for negligent retention and supervision of Sheppard was dismissed for two reasons: because the state was not vicariously liable for Sheppard’s conduct, and because Hoag failed to meet the TCA pain and suffering verbal threshold.

The appellate court has reversed the lower court’s ruling on the LAD claim because ...