First Circuit Reverses Summary Judgment for Retaliation Claim

On February 6, 2013, the First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment granted to Correctional Medical Services, Inc. ("CMS") for an alleged retaliation claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In spring 2007, Katherine Kelley, a licensed practical nurse, was employed by CMS at the Maine State Prison. While horseback riding in July 2007, she injured the right side of her pelvis and required surgery. She took a six-week medical leave of absence. CMS sent Kelley's supervisor Theresa Kesteloot as her interim replacement.

Kelley returned to work on September 17, 2007 with a medical note on her restrictions. Kesteloot refused to let Kelley return to work because the restrictions were not on the appropriate CMS form. The director of nursing overruled her, allowing Kelley to return to work with crutches.

Of the three stations at the prison, the main clinic, the infirmary, and the close unit, Kelley primarily worked at the infirmary and the main clinic and occasionally responded to code blues at the prison using her crutches. Experiencing leg and health problems over a period of time, her physician authorized the use of a cane and limited her work time ...

Ohio Appellate Court Orders Review of State Budget Over Private Prison Sale

by Gary Hunter

Ohio Governor John Kasich joined legislators in protesting an order by Ohio’s Tenth District Court of Appeals that instructed a trial court to edit the state’s biennial budget bill. The appellate court held that lawmakers had violated the “one subject/one bill” rule of Ohio’s Constitution when they inserted a prison privatization proviso in the budget.

In October 2013, the Ohio Court of Appeals unanimously found that lawmakers had improperly enacted a law that allowed for the sale and privatization of up to five state prisons. The Court overturned a trial court’s dismissal of the complaint, filed by the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OSCEA) and Progress Ohio, and ruled that the private prison language had “no rational reason” for being included in the budget.

As a result of the provision in the budget bill, state officials sold one prison, the Lake Erie Correctional Facility, to Corrections Corporation of America in 2011 for $72 million. The state pays CCA to house Ohio prisoners at the facility, at a cost of $29 million per year plus an annual ownership fee of almost $4 million. [See: PLN, Nov. ...

Pennsylvania Detainee’s Estate Claims Financial Incentive Motive for Denial of Medical Care; $325,000 Settlement

by David Reutter

A Pennsylvania federal district court ordered medical personnel employed by Correctional Medical Care, Inc. (CMC) to face claims brought by the estate of a pre-trial detainee who died from alleged deliberate indifference to ...

Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders Files “Justice is Not for Sale Act”

by Derek Gilna

Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, along with Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona in the House, filed companion bills on September 17, 2015 to address some of the many problems in the U.S. criminal justice system. The highlights of their legislation include abolishing all for-profit prisons and reinstating parole for federal prisoners.

The proposed legislation, which must pass both houses of Congress before being signed into law by the President, also takes aim at various other criminal justice issues – including a quota that requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to incarcerate 34,000 detainees at any given time. The bill further addresses excessive charges for prison phone calls and money transfer services, requires ICE to better monitor its facilities and ends the detention of immigrant families.

Senator Sanders, who has advocated other social reforms, including raising the minimum wage and increasing oversight of large banks, noted in a press release that announced the filing of his bill that the private prison industry generates billions of dollars in annual revenues and employs teams of lobbyists to persuade government officials to continue mass incarceration ...

Idaho Prisoner Wins $602,000 Settlement against Corizon

by Derek Gilna

An Idaho state prisoner, William A. Bown, obtained a $602,782.50 settlement from Corizon Health in July 2014 for damages resulting from deliberately indifferent medical care arising from a heart attack he suffered at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.

Although Bown ...

Florida City Can Deny Water Service to CCA Site Outside its Boundaries

Florida’s Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Court held that the City of Pembroke Pines has no duty to provide water and sewage services to a site owned by Correctional Corporation of America (CCA).

CCA bought the site, which is located in the town of Southwest Ranches, in 1998. It planned to build a 750-bed women’s jail for Broward County, but the county withdrew its plans. Since, CCA has tried to build an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on the site.

CCA filed a lawsuit in 2012 claiming Pembroke Pines has a duty to provide service to the site. A federal judge set the case aside. Pembroke Pines then filed suit in state court to clarify its obligation. A trial was held, and Judge Carol-Lisa Phillps issued a ruling.

Her order found no contract existed, and the city charter required the city commission to approve service to the sites outside city boundaries. CCA expected to receive service through a stub on city property, but the facility itself would be outside the boundaries. With no approval by the commission, CCA was not entitled to service.

“I am pleased with the decision; ...

Private Prisons: Just Bit Players in Mass Incarceration

by James Kilgore             

Copyright, Truthout.org. This article was originally published on October 19, 2015; reprinted with permission.

Social justice activists love to hate private prisons. The loathing is easy to justify. Making profit by locking people up and keeping them there is repulsive. Moreover, major private prison operators like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group have a history of tragedy and ruthless behavior. From the early days of CCA when cofounder Tom Beasley described marketing prisons as "just like ... selling cars, or real estate, or hamburgers" to more recent revelations of locking up preschoolers, private prisons have plumbed the depths of immorality. And they have thrown money at the project, spending millions on lobbying for harsher sentencing laws to secure their bottom lines, even bribing judges to incarcerate juveniles.

Since 2000, private prison companies have staked out the war on immigrants as their market niche, working with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to promote the passage of harsh anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona, Alabama and other states to corral more "customers" for their growing stable of detention centers. Unless you are a shareholder, there is little to ...

A recent report from The Sentencing Project, based in Washington, D.C., concludes that the mass-privatization of American prisons has encouraged, not deterred, many countries—including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Brazil—to hand over the responsibility of its prisoners to for-profit companies.

"Research to date on private prisons has found that they perform no better than publicly operated facilities, are not guaranteed to reduce correctional costs, and provide an incentive for increasing correctional and detention populations," The Sentencing Project says in its August 2013 report on international trends in prison privatization.

"Despite these repeated failings," the report argues, "many countries, including those facing serious problems in the quality and capabilities of their correctional systems, have followed the United States in adopting a flawed and shortsighted scheme."

The report finds that Florida-based GEO Group, the second-largest private prison company in the United States, made 14% of its 2012 revenue off "international services," while G4S, a United Kingdom-based for-profit prison operator, claims to be the "largest security service provider in the world."

GEO Group, G4S and Britain's Serco, all of which "dominate" the international market, the report says, have found at least 11 countries spread across North and South America, Europe, Africa and ...

Federal Court Denies Former Prisoner Right to Catholic Television

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a prisoner’s equal protection suit as frivolous. Raymond Gutierrez, a California prisoner housed at a Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) facility in Mississippi, filed suit in the lower court, alleging an equal protection violation through CCA’s failure to provide him access to a Catholic television network. The lower court dismissed the suit as frivolous and for failure to state a claim and Gutierrez appealed. On April 3, 2014, the court of appeals affirmed the lower court’s holding.

While Gutierrez had been incarcerated at a Mississippi CCA facility, he claimed that CCA had provided a Protestant based television network but had denied his request for Catholic based television. However, according to CCA’s Religious Review Committee, the television network, Trinity Broadcasting Network, was nondenominational and CCA could not offer individual religious networks to satisfy each denomination.

Gutierrez filed suit in the District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi in January 2013, alleging that his rights had been violated under the Equal Protection Clause as CCA did not provide access to a Catholic television network. The ...

Nevada: Incorrect Analysis of Fact and Law is Harmless Error in Denying Motion for New Trial

The Nevada Supreme Court held that a trial court abused its discretion by wrongly categorizing a fact and subsequently applying the incorrect legal standard to it in denying the defendant’s motion for a new trial. But, finding the abuse of discretion was “harmless error,” the court affirmed the denial of the defendant’s motion.

Wackenhut of Nevada, Inc. (“Wackenhut”) had judgment entered against it after a jury trial, and Wackenhut subsequently filed a motion for a new trial, alleging claims of misconduct by the plaintiffs’ counsel. The trial court denied the motion and Wackenhut appealed. As the trial court had not supported the judgment with its findings, the Nevada Supreme Court remanded the case to the trial court for it to do so. The trial court then supported its judgment with findings that misconduct by the plaintiffs’ counsel had not been objected to and that the plain error standard applied. On July 18, 2014, the Nevada Supreme Court determined that, although the trial court had erred in its reasoning, the error was harmless.

Of each of the attorney misconduct claims that Wackenhut alleged in support ...