The North Carolina Department of Correction (DOC) appealed the reversal of a 1989 summary judgment grant dismissing state prisoner Joe Medley's action for a DOC contracted private physician's negligence. The court affirmed the dismissal holding that the DOC had a duty to provide adequate care.

Medley's leg was amputated after alleged negligence by physician John Stanley. He brought action pursuant to the North Carolina Tort Claims Act (Act). The DOC motioned for summary judgment dismissal because Stanley was an independent contractor and not subject to the Act. Dismissal was granted and Medley appealed arguing that the DOC had a statutory duty to provide him adequate medical care and the court reversed the dismissal. The DOC appealed.

The Supreme Court of North Carolina held that since the federal Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause required the DOC to provide adequate medical care to prisoners, the State's clause imposed at least the same duty if not greater. See: Medley v. North Carolina Department of Correction, 330 N.C. 837, 412 S.E.2d 654 (1992).

Two Massachusetts nurses, Fitzgerald and Landry, brought suit against Correctional Medical Services (CMS) for defamation of character after being fired over baseless accusations of one alleged eyewitness. The jury awarded them $50,000 collectively.

After holding a door open for a guard who was borrowing a heater, the two nurses were ...

On June 2, 2005, a Maryland court of appeals upheld the revocation of a Prison Health Services (PBS) Physician’s Assistant (PA) certificate for fraudulently procuring prescriptions for his adult son.

Carl F. Oltman, Sr., was a PA, employed by PHS, contracted to work for the Department of the Navy at the Naval Academy in Annapolis and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. Oltman had served in the Navy from 1969 through 1995 and was retired. As a Navy retiree, he was entitled to medical care and prescriptions for himself and his children until the children reached the age of twenty-one (twenty-three if attending college). Oltman’s son, Carl Oltman, Jr., had been diagnosed with Attention Deficient Hyperactive Disorder and been prescribed Ritalin, a controlled substance, or its generic equivalent.

Once Junior turned twenty-one, he was no longer eligible for prescriptions paid for by the Navy. At that time, and for two and a half years thereafter, Oltman fraudulently obtained prescriptions for Junior’s medication. To do this, Oltman used physician’s computers to enter fraudulent prescriptions four times and persuaded Navy physicians to enter fraudulent prescriptions nine times. After his criminal conduct was discovered, Oltman pleaded guilty to federal and Maryland misdemeanor ...

Of concern to taxpayers should be the private business interests of their legislators. An Arkansas law enacted in 2007 requires disclosure of those interests when a lawmaker or his or her spouse owns at least 10 percent of a business that contracts with the state. Under the law, Act 567 (HB 2662), state agencies are required to disclose any current such contracts and those entered into within the past five years.

The law hit its mark. The largest business interest that has been disclosed involves a company controlled by Senator Percy Malone, an Arkadelphia Democrat and legislator since 1995 who is president and majority stock holder of W.P. Malone, Inc., which owns Pharmacy Care of Arkansas. The firm operates as Allcare Pharmacy.

Allcare provides prescription drugs and other medical services to prisoners in the Arkansas Department of Correc-tions through a subcontract with Correctional Medical Services (CMS). Malone declined to put a monetary value on the business that Allcare does with CMS, stating such information was “proprietary.”

Malone’s company engages in a significant amount of direct business with state agencies, too. For providing prescription drugs to 4,400 Medicaid recipients, Allcare was paid $2.89 million in the last fiscal year. The company ...

When Texas Youth Commission (TYC) ombudsman Will Harrell toured the privately-operated Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte, Texas on September 24, 2007, he found children sleeping on dirty bed sheets, walls covered with smeared feces, urine-stained walls around toilets, excrement in the shower area and reports of insects in the food.

His report also noted that some youths were confined in “malodorous and dark” solitary confinement for up to five weeks and only let out for showers. Several juveniles at the Coke County facility, which was described as a “violent cam-pus,” had requested to be placed in segregation for their own safety.

Prisoners at the juvenile center ranged in age from 13 to 21, and Harrell described them as “desperate” to lodge com-plaints during his visit. His investigators noticed that youths in solitary confinement were “educated” by teachers who slipped crosswords and math puzzles under the cell door.
His report also referred to the regular school program as a place where students simply sat in front of computers. “I usually leave these facilities sad,” said Harrell. “I left that one mad.”

What made his report so surprising was that the prison had operated for years without raising any eyebrows; ...

The nation’s largest private prison firm, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), has once again upset county officials by repeatedly failing to control vital jail operations. The company responded by discontinuing its contract to operate the facility.

On November 1, 2007, a CCA worker prematurely released nine prisoners from the Bay County, Florida jail’s substance abuse program before their sentences had expired. Upon CCA’s discovery of the mistake, the prisoners were notified and each agreed to return to finish their jail terms.

The Bay County Commissioners fined the company $140,000 for the mistaken early releases, an amount equivalent to 1 percent of the monthly $1.4 million paid to the company for operating the facility.

“This is a jail and it needs to be run like one,” said Commissioner Mike Nelson. A report by the county contract monitor found the incident resulted from poor judgment by CCA staff, broad booking procedures and inadequate staffing. CCA was also cited for allowing several hours to pass before informing the contract monitor that the incident had occurred. “It shouldn’t have happened ...” explained Nelson. “What I am really upset about is that there was a 7-hour delay before anyone at our place was ever notified.” ...

The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of a negligence claim against Prison Health Services, Inc. (PHS) stemming from a 17-year-old detainee’s suicide. The Court also concluded individual defendants were not entitled to official immunity, because they performed ministerial, rather than discretionary functions.

On November 10, 1996, 17-year-old Ronald Smith stole a car in South Carolina and drove it to Georgia, where he was arrested in Catham County. PHS contracted with the county to provide medical services, including medical screenings of new detainees, at the jail.

PHS Nurse Cornelius Jones performed Smith’s screening, including a mental health assessment. Jones concluded Smith needed to see a mental health counselor because he had been hospitalized for violent behavior within the last year, and had suicidal thoughts in the last three days. Jones completed a mental health referral form, but the booking sergeant, whom policy dictated was to receive the form, denied received the form or any other information about Smith’s mental state.

On November 11, 1996, Classification Officer Henry Mallory interviewed Smith and completed a classification profile, which did not reflect any mental health concerns. Mallory assigned Smith to general population but changed that to cell restriction or “lockdown”––continuous isolation––based upon ...

Late last year, a prisoner at the CCA-operated Hardeman County Correctional Facility (HCCF) in Tennessee notified PLN that the prison’s warden, assistant warden and internal affairs officer had either resigned or been fired or transferred. The staff changes reportedly resulted from an excessive use of force incident and unrelated criminal charges.

A public records request submitted to the Tennessee Dept. of Correction (TDOC) pursuant to T.C.A. § 10-7-503 resulted in a number of documents that shed light on what happened at HCCF.

On May 16, 2007, a violent altercation occurred in the chapel between Muslim prisoners and CCA guards. HCCF warden Glen Turner personally participated in the interrogation of several prisoners after the fight.
While questioning prisoner James Ingram, who insisted he had not been involved in the incident, Warden Turner threw him to the ground and punched him several times, causing an injury above his eye. Ingram was restrained at the time.

According to Jerry Lester, the TDOC’s acting Internal Affairs Director, state officials were not informed about Warden Turner’s excessive use of force “as it was never reported at the facility. It was not until July 19, when the TDOC received notification from prisoner Ingram’s attorney of his ...

A Jena, Louisiana private prison with a troubled past will experience rebirth as an immigrant detention center. The facility, built by the failed N-Group Securities company as part of a scam run by Patrick and Michael Graham, once held 280 juveniles. The Grahams were prosecuted – along with former Houston mayor Fred Hofheinz, former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, former Texas prison chief Andy Collins and VitaPro CEO Yank Barry – for various prison-procurement and private prison construction scams.

The Jena facility has been closed for almost eight years. PLN previously reported on problems at the prison when it held juveniles under the management of GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut), including a March 2000 lawsuit filed against the company by the U.S. Dept. of Justice related to violence and abuse. [See: PLN, Aug. 2000, p.8].

Now GEO Group has announced plans to expand and remodel the detention center at a cost of $30 million, and convert it into a 1,160-bed immigration prison called the LaSalle Detention Facility (LDF). GEO has already entered into an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to house detainees at the facility; the expansion is expected to be complete by mid-2008.

The LDF will include a federal ...

The plaintiffs were nurses employed by Prison Health Services, Inc., and were attacked and beaten by a prisoner. The Supreme Court's decision in Collins v. Harker Heights overrules prior authority suggesting that there might be a special relationship supporting liability in these circumstances, and even if there were such a relationship, there is no evidence of culpable conduct here. See: White v. Lemacks, 24 F.Supp.2d 1373 (N.D.Ga. 1998).