PA Prison Report - January 16, 2012

 

In this edition: Retaliation and Physical Abuse at SCI-Dallas, DOC wants Mumia to cut his hair, Allegheny County settles with jail sex assault victim for $6,000 and more…

 

 

 

Retaliation and Physical Abuse at SCI-Dallas: On April 4, 2011, prison guards at SCI-Dallas assaulted prisoner Davon Hayes in retaliation for his lawsuit and private criminal complaints against them. Sergeant Buck ordered a cell search because Hayes allegedly said he was going to throw urine on them. Hayes was pulled from his cell in restricted housing and handcuffed to a window sill. Three guards, Whitman, Fitzgerald, and Amos, searched his cell and found no evidence of contraband or other wrongdoing. Prison guard Young initiated the assault upon assisting Hayes to his door when he tried to force him to the ground. Guards Santoro and Headman then tackled him to the ground, while his hands were still cuffed behind his back. Santoro repeatedly punched him, fracturing Hayes left orbital bone of the floor wall of the eye. Young kept pulling on the tether behind his back jerking his body around, while Headman was kneeing him in the back and side.

 

Hayes believes this assault was in retaliation to a lawsuit and criminal complaints he had filed previously, and to his jailhouse lawyering. He was held in SCI-Dallas’ solitary confinement for 20 months, where he incurred over 5 years disciplinary custody time. Guards Headman and Santoro filed fabricated misconducts against Hayes claiming he assaulted them. He was found guilty. Hayes has filed private criminal complaints on the incident, but has yet to receive a response. He currently has a federal lawsuit regarding the incident.

 

 

DOC wants Mumia to cut his hair: In a statement issued late Thursday, January 12, an attorney for Mumia Abu-Jamal reported that he has been given a new reason for his continued solitary confinement – his long dreadlocks.

 

Prison authorities at SCI Mahanoy claim Abu-Jamal will be held in the Restricted Housing Unit on disciplinary custody until he cuts his hair. This is an old tactic that was used against Abu-Jama; when he was a death row prisoner. He spent 8 years on disciplinary status in death row until he was removed from that status—without getting a haircut—in the early 1990s.

 

It has taken prison officials five weeks to invent this new pretext for continuing the 30-year-long solitary confinement torture of Abu-Jamal. Mumia and his supporters are calling for his immediate release to general population and the shut down of all of the solitary units in PA.

 

 

Allegheny County settles with jail sex assault victim for $6,000: Allegheny County and its jail healthcare arm have settled a lawsuit by a former inmate who said she was sexually assaulted by an infirmary nurse for $6,000. The woman released from liability both the county and Allegheny Correctional Health Services, neither of which admitted any wrongdoing. The settlement document, dated in November, was released today under a right-to-know request from the Post-Gazette. The woman was among a half dozen who said they were offered candy or extra narcotics if they submitted to touching by former jail nurse John Johnson Jr., 60, and threatened with discipline if they did not. Mr. Johnson, of Green Tree, pleaded guilty in October to three counts of institutional sexual assault and faces sentencing March 19. Another of the women settled her case for $5,000 in July.

 

 

 

Judge drops charges against prison guard: On Friday January 13, one of the prison guards suspended from SCI Pittsburgh, had all criminal charges against him dropped, and the criminal charges against two other prison guards were decreased. The guards were suspended and charged after investigations revealed that prisoners were being targeted and sexually abused at SCI Pittsburgh. This abuse, according to criminal complaints, began in 2010, and went on until April of 2011. The main perpetrator, Harry F. Nicoletti, is awaiting trial for 99 counts of sexual assault.

 

On April 1, 2011, Kevin Friess was charged with simple assault, official oppression, criminal conspiracy, and intimidating a witness. These charges were dismissed on Friday, when witnesses misidentified him in Court. The hearing Friday, included five hours of testimony by ten prisoners, all testifying that prison guards Kevin Friess, Tory K. Kelly and Jerome J. Lynch struck or intimidated them. One prisoner, William Zuschlag, testified that prison guard Tory K. Kelly attacked him for a week, and said that if he told anyone he would splatter his blood all over the walls. Out of the 26 charges filed against Kelly, twelve were dismissed or withdrawn and fourteen were held for trial. Of the fourteen charges against Lynch, five were dismissed or withdrawn, four were held for trial, and the rest will be addressed in a preliminary hearing scheduled for next week.

 

 

 

Supreme Court rejects prisoner lawsuit versus Geo employees: The Supreme Court ruled, by an 8-1 vote, on January 10, 2012 that employees of the private prison operator Geo Group Inc. cannot be sued in federal court by a prisoner for cruel and unusual punishment.

 

Richard Pollard fell and fractured both his elbows in 2001 at the Geo run facility in Taft, California. He claimed in his lawsuit that GEO employees forced him to wear a prison jumpsuit and a mechanical restraint device that caused him pain and that they did not provide him a splint and necessary medical care.

 

The Supreme Court in a majority opinion agreed with the five Geo employees and the Obama administration that such claims for injuries should be brought under state, not federal law.

 

In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that prisoners cannot sue private prison companies over alleged constitutional violations, but had not previously decided if guards and other employees of those companies could be sued for damages in federal court.

 

Justice Breyer, in the majority opinion, wrote that state law would authorize adequate alternative damages providing both significant deterrence and compensation.

 

Summarized from Reuters

 

The Supreme Court Decision is here

 

 

Outgoing Governor Haley Barbour pardoned nearly 200 prisoners, incoming Governor Phil Bryant seeks to limit clemency: In his final days as Mississippi governor, Republican Haley Barbour gave pardons or early release to nearly 200 people, more people than his four most recent predecessors combined, with charges ranging from murder, manslaughter or homicide to drug crimes, DUI deaths, burglary and kidnapping.

 

Relatives of crime victims had voiced outrage knowing Barbour pardoned four convicted murderers. Those men had worked at the governor’s mansion as part of a prison trusty program cleaning vehicles, waiting tables and performing other domestic duties.

 

Barbour’s office has said only a minority of those convicts who received clemency were incarcerated at the time of the move, with 90 percent no longer in prison when the pardons were granted. Barbour had said that the pardons were intended to allow the inmates “to find gainful employment or acquire professional licenses as well as hunt and vote,” and that his decisions were typically based on the recommendation of the Parole Board.

 

But the pardons generated a firestorm of controversy about how much power a governor should have to pardon prisoners convicted of serious crimes.

 

The new Governor Phil Bryant, who served as Barbour’s lieutenant governor, would support a state constitutional amendment and has asked Senator Michael Watson, Chairman for the Senate Constitution Committee, to review the current law as it regards to pardons, how it allows the governor to make these type of decisions, and whether we need to address the wording better in a constitutional amendment, spokesman Mick Bullock said.

 

Summarized from Politico and Reuters

 

 

Black incarceration rates remain high, slight drop in prison population since 1970’s: “Prisoners in 2010,” a study from Department of Justice (DOJ) reported that as of Dec. 31, 2010, federal correctional authorities had control of approximately 1,605,127 prisoners, down by 9,228 prisoners from 2009. This is the first drop in the overall U.S. prison population since 1972, DOJ officials said.

 

Half of state departments of correction reported declines in their prison populations. Rhode Island reported the largest decrease (8.6 percent), followed by Georgia (7.9 percent) and Vermont (6.4 percent). On the other hand, Iowa reported the largest increase, up 7.3 percent, followed by Illinois, up 7.2 percent and Arkansas, up 6.5 percent.

 

The study, including data from all 50 states, reported that black men had the highest incarceration rate of 3,059 per 100,000 U.S. black residents, nearly seven times higher than those for white men, which were 456 per 100,000 U.S. white residents at the end of 2010. For Latino men it was 1,252 per 100,000 U.S. Latino residents.

 

The number of black men in prison under state and federal jurisdiction, although high, has declined since 2000 with a one-year exception. In 2000, the incarceration rate of black men was 3,457 per 100,000 U.S. residents. In 2001, the figured climbed to 3,535 per 100,000 U.S. black residents. After that, there has been a steady decline in black men in federal and state prisons.

 

Incarceration rate for black women prisoners show similar trend as black men. At the end of 2010, 133 African-American women per 100,000 of the U.S. black population were behind bars. This figure was 47 for white women per 100,000 of the white U.S. population and 77 for Latino women per 100,000 of the Latino U.S. population.

 

Incarceration rate among black men ages 30 to 34 years old—a key wage earning group – was 7,265 per 100,000 U.S. black residents, compared with 1,055 per 100,000 U.S. white residents for white men. For Latino men in the same age group it was 2,795 per 100,000 U.S. Latino residents.

In terms of type of offense the breakup was as follows: violent offenses – 54.9 percent of blacks, 49.9 percent of whites, 55.5 percent of Latinos; property offenses – 15.2 percent of blacks, 24.8 percent of whites, 16.2 percent of Latinos; drug related offenses 21.1 of blacks, 13.9 percent of whites, 19.5 percent of Latinos.

 

Summarized from The North Star News

 

The Department of Justice study is here

 

 

Philly area: Wednesdays are Write On! Prison Letter Writing Night at the LAVA space at 4134 Lancaster, 6-9 pm. Come help us stay connected with the many prisoners who write to us with news from inside, learn to document crimes committed by prison staff, and help bring an end to the abuse and torture of our brothers and sisters behind bars.

 

If you’d like to know more about the Human Rights Coalition or would like to get involved, come to Write On!, to our monthly general meetings (second Monday of each month, 6pm), or call us at 215-921-3491, email: info@hrcoalition.org, or visit our website at http://www.hrcoalition.org./

 

Pittsburgh area: Write On! – Letter writing to prisoners and HRC work night every Wednesday at 5129 Penn Avenue from 7 -10pm. To get involved with HRC/Fed Up! in Pittsburgh, email: hrcfedup@gmail.com or call 412-654-9070.

 

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