On January 11, 2006, a Montana state district court set aside two prisoners' convictions for escape and acquitted them after holding that no evidence had been presented that they were in the custody of a peace officer, a requirement for the crime of escape in Montana.

William Leonard Brown and Brian Joseph Holliday, Montana state prisoners, were being transported by employees of TransCor, Inc., a private company owned by Corrections Corporation of America that transports prisoners under contract with the Montana Department of Corrections, when they fled from the TransCor van. The TransCor employees were not peace officers.

A jury convicted Brown and Holliday of felony escape. They then filed a motion seeking to set aside the verdict and be declared not guilty by the court. The basis of the motion was that state law defined escape as knowingly or purposely eluding official detention. Section 45-7-306, MCA.
Official detention is in turn defined as "placement of a person in the legal custody of a municipality, a county, or the state as the result of the actual or constructive constraint or custody of a person by a peace officer pursuant to arrest, transport, or court order." Section 45-7-306(1)(a)(ii), MCA. The trial ...

By Tilda Sosaya

Prison construction is booming in the USA, and New Mexico has been the guinea pig for the largest of the private prison corporations like Corrections Corporation of America, Cornell, GEO Corp. (aka, Wackenhut, Group 4 Falk) and MTC. In New Mexico about 45% of our prisoners are in private, for-profit prisons and jails, while the national average is less than 10%. Wexford, and Aramark, medical and food service providers - have had their hands full of cash from our state coffers but have proven less than adequate in providing services, eventually losing their contracts. In a scandal-ridden expose in 2006, it was revealed that Joe Williams, NM Corrections Secretary had been engaged in an intimate relationship with their lobbyist, Ann Casey (moon-lighting from her regular job as an assistant warden in Indiana). Wexford and Aramark both denied that she worked for them, but she was listed as an official lobbyist in the Secretary of State's office. Joe Williams was placed on "administrative leave" in March of 2006 by the Governor, pending an investigation, but the scandal was buried after Richardson's office found "no grounds for further investigation." Prior to being appointed a cabinet post in the Richardson ...

Phoenix, Arizona Sheriff's Policy Delaying Prisoners' Elective Abortions Enjoined

by John E. Dannenberg

Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio's policy that required a female prisoner seeking an elective abortion to first obtain a court order for this procedure was enjoined because it represented an exaggerated response to Arpaio's alleged penological concerns.

Jane Doe was sentenced to four months in county jail on March 18, 2004. Shortly before being committed, she discovered she was pregnant.

Correctional Health Services (CHS), the jail's contract medical provider, confirmed the pregnancy but declined Doe's immediate and repeated request to be transported to a hospital for an elective abortion within the first trimester of her pregnancy. Per jail regulations, she offered to pay for both the procedure and the guarding costs. Only on May 12, 2004 did CHS transport her for the procedure, after Doe obtained the court order.

Doe complained that the jail's policy requiring a court order before providing this type of elective treatment was unconstitutional. She sued in state court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming Fourteenth Amendment violation of the right to privacy and Eighth Amendment violation of the right to adequate medical care. She sought a permanent injunction against the county ...

by David M. Reutter

From its inception, privatization of Florida prisons has been touted as a way to save taxpayers money. Yet, a 2005 audit by Florida's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) revealed that private prison vendors bilked taxpayers for $13 million. To add insult to injury, Florida's Department of Management Services (DMS) entered into a settlement with one of the companies to receive only pennies on the dollar in return.

Two private companies operate five Florida prisons. The GEO Group operates prisons in South Bay and Moorehaven while Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) runs prisons in Lake City, Panama City, and Quincy. GEO also has a contract to run the Graceville prison, which is under construction.

OPPAGA's audit revealed that over an eight-year period the companies received $4.5 million for unfilled jobs. GEO received an additional $5 million in cost-of-living salary adjustments that were never paid to employees. At its Quincy prison, CCA received $2.9 million more for facility maintenance than it spent.

The bulk of the blame for the overpayments has been laid at the feet of the Correctional Privatization Commission (CPC). From its inception, CPC was infiltrated by persons that were cozy with ...

by John E. Dannenberg

The death of a Youngstown, Ohio arrestee who was severely beaten by police and negligently treated by Prison Health Services? (PHS) contract jail medical staff resulted in a settlement totaling $450,000.

African-American Booker Mitchell, 72, was summoned to the scene of an automobile accident involving his wife, Mattie. He brought Mattie?s driver?s license and proof of financial responsibility. Youngstown Police Officer Michael Walker refused Booker?s offer to use his AAA membership to have Mattie?s car towed, and Booker walked away.
Inexplicably, Walker next grabbed Booker from behind, knocked him head-first into a parked van, denting the van. Walker then landed on the unarmed Booker, whereupon he maced and handcuffed him. Walker arrested Booker for obstructing official business, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. One hour later, he was transported to Mahoning County Justice Center.

At booking, PHS, who conducts medical intake interviews, noted Booker suffered from high blood pressure. PHS nurse Wilson reported that Booker could not remember what medication he took, that he had been pepper-sprayed, but regretted the incident at his wife?s accident and was not in ?acute distress.? Booker constantly complained that his head hurt. When PHS staff examined him, he also complained that ...

by David M. Reutter

Another state prison system that subjected itself to the experiment of privatized medical services has learned the same hard lesson suffered by other states: a trail of inadequate care that leaves prisoners dead or maimed. This time the Michigan prison system is under pressure by the mainstream media and the Governor's office to examine the health care provided to prisoners by Correctional Medical Services (CMS).

CMS is no stranger to PLN readers. In our December 2005 issue we detailed the inept and non-existent care provided to Delaware prisoners. While Delaware's experiment with privatized prison health care goes back 20 years, Michigan opened its prisons to HMO-style for-profit medical services in 1997, when it contracted with United Correctional Managed Care. CMS assumed the contract the following year; in 2004 the company's contract was renewed for three more years through April 2007.

Michigan's experiment is mainly isolated to what are known as the "Hadix prisons," so named after a lawsuit that has put prisons in the Jackson area under federal oversight for more than a decade (Hadix v. Caruso, USDC WD MI, Case No. 4:92-CV-00110-RAE). That lawsuit sought to improve medical care and other prison conditions.

Because of ...

The court of appeals for the Eleventh circuit upheld a jury verdict against the Escambia county Road Prison in Florida for $500,000 in favor of a prisoner denied medical care. The plaintiff fractured his hip ball socket and was repeatedly denied medical treatment. The court held that the county was properly held liable for the denial of medical treatment due to its delegated system of medical decision making. See: Mandell v. Doe, 888 F.2d 783 (11th Cir. 1989).

The court of appeals for the Eleventh circuit held that Georgia prison officials were liable for a prisoner's death from asthma. The prison officials were deliberately indifferent to the prisoner's health and the prison lacked adequate medical facilities. That the Georgia DOC had contracted out its medical care to Correctional Medical Services was immaterial. CMS and the prison doctor were granted qualified immunity from damages and the company could not be held liable due to inaction on the part of prison officials. Court discusses difference between deliberate indifference and medical malpractice in prison medical neglect cases. Case was remanded for further proceedings. See: Howell v. Evans, 922 F.2d 712 (11th Cir. 1991).

A U.S. District Court in Maine held that the spoliation of relevant missing or tampered documents precluded summary judgment, and that certain supervisors were not liable to the estate of a deceased prisoner, but a clinical social worker and two prison guards were not entitled to qualified immunity. The defendants' motion for summary judgment was granted, but only in part.

In this case, on October 3, 1998, a prisoner committed suicide at the Maine State Prison. At the time, the prisoner, who had an extensive history of mental illness, which included the hearing of voices, was housed in a "cell on the stabilization corridor of the Mental Health Stabilization Unit (MHSU)" at the prison. Yet, somehow he managed to hang himself with his belt.

Subsequently, a personal representative of the prisoner's estate sued numerous prison personnel, which the court divided "into two distinct groups: `the medical defendants' and `the State defendants."' The former were employees of Correctional Medical Services (CMS). The complaint alleged that the defendants were deliberately indifferent to the prisoner's safety, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Thereafter, the defendants filed two separate motions for summary judgment, which included a qualified immunity defense, and this opinion is devoted ...

A Louisiana appeals court upheld unemployment benefits for a fired Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) guard. While working at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, the guard witnessed another guard speaking offensively to a black prisoner.

The observing guard wrote a letter addressing the incident and sent copies to the warden, a grievance officer and the prisoner's brother. She was subsequently fired for violating a CCA rule regarding communication with prisoners' family members. After her unemployment claim was denied by the Louisiana Department of Labor, Division of Employment Security due to CCA's allegations that she was fired for "employment-related misconduct" the former guard requested a review by an administrative law judge (ALJ). The ALJ ruled that her actions did not meet the legal standard of employee misconduct.

CCA appealed, and a Louisiana district court upheld the ALJ's decision. CCA appealed again, and the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that "the denial of unemployment benefits ... was not based on sufficient evidence." See: Brinson v. Administrator, Division Of Employment Security, 793 So.2d 552 (La.App. 2nd Cir. 2001).