by Matt Clarke

On October 20, 2008, Texas Governor Rick Perry placed all 112 prisons and 155,000 prisoners in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) on lockdown to search for cell phones after a state senator received calls from a death row prisoner.

Richard Lee Tabler, 29, who is awaiting execution, used a cell phone to call state Senator John Whitmire, chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, on October 7, 2008 to ask for his help in obtaining a pro bono attorney and special visits for his mother and grandmother.

Tabler’s mother, Lorraine, was arrested at an airport when she arrived from Georgia after Sen. Whitmire told her he had arranged a visit with her son. Detectives are in possession of a videotape from a Wal-Mart in Waycross, Georgia that shows her purchasing minutes for the cell phone that Richard used. Over forty calls made from death row were to her home number.

Tabler’s mother and sister, Kristina Martinez, who surrendered to authorities in Temple, Texas on October 22, 2008, were named in felony warrants for providing a prohibited item to a prisoner. They face up to two years in state jail.

Tabler had also called Austin American-Statesman ...

Washington State prisoner Habib Saleh sought review of his federal habeas corpus denial challenging the admission of statements made in a voluntary phone conversation he initiated at his trial for first degree murder. The court affirmed the statement's use and his conviction, holding that the non custodial phone interrogation did not require a Miranda warning.

Seattle apartment manager and Saleh's ex wife, Elizabeth Edwards, was brutally beaten and killed in 1996. On March 3, 1998, Saleh, in jail for assaulting his son in law, was interrogated in the murder after being read his Miranda rights. On March 25, 1998, he requested counsel but also said to a detective that he wanted the electric chair so that he could be with Edwards, but denied killing her. The next day, March 26, 1998, Saleh placed a call to the detective and again requested the electric chair.

Saleh was charged with first degree murder. His attack on his son in law resembled the attack against Edwards. He had a history of violence toward Edwards and blood found on his apartment's exterior matched her DNA. He had been treated for injuries consistent with the method of Edward's attack. The March 3rd and 25th statements ...

On August 14, 2008, the Texas Board of Criminal Justice (TBCJ) awarded a phone service contract to two companies, Kansas-based Embarq Corp. and Dallas-based Securus Technologies, Inc. Prior to this historic event, the Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) was the only state prison system in the nation that did not let prisoners make phone calls. The contract was awarded during a TBCJ meeting held at a motel in Austin; prior to the contract award, details of the bids were confidential.

It is now known that Global Tel*Link and Unisys also submitted proposals, with Global Tel offering the lowest bid. But the TBCJ didn’t accept the lowest bid; after all, it will be prisoners and their families paying for the phone calls, not the state. Instead, the TDCJ accepted the higher Embarq/Securus partnership bid with rates of 26¢/minute for in-state and 43¢/minute for out-of-state collect calls, and 23¢/minute for in-state and 39¢/minute for out-of-state prepaid calls. The contract will result in the installation of approximately 5,000 phones at 113 prison sites by April 2009, which will be used by about 160,000 Texas prisoners.

To be eligible to make phone calls, prisoners must have no major disciplinary violations within the past ...

More Damages, Costs & Attorney Fees Awarded in NH False Disciplinary Case

Three prisoners involved in two federal civil rights lawsuits against officials of the Hillsborough County House of Corrections in New Hampshire (the jail) were awarded nominal, compensatory and punitive damages plus attorney fees and costs.

On July 14, 2002, jail guard Cesar Rivas, working alone in a medium-security housing unit, radioed in an alarm. He claimed to have been rushed or cornered by a group of at least twenty prisoners. Rivas picked out nine pre-trial detainees from the locked-down unit whom he claimed were involved in the incident. The nine were placed in solitary confinement.

The conditions in solitary were especially harsh, and included denial of all property except a mattress, sheet, pillow and prison uniform. Prohibited items included legal papers, writing instruments and personal hygiene items such as soap and toilet paper. The water supply to the cells was shut off and the nine prisoners had to rely on the largess of guards to turn it on briefly so they could wash their hands or flush the toilet.

They were subjected to up to five in-cell strip searches a day in which they were often required to ...

Georgia Sheriff Must Give Revenue from Prisoner Phone Calls to County

by David M. Reutter

The Georgia Court of Appeals has held that a sheriff must turn over to the county all revenue from a profit-sharing prisoner telephone contract. The ruling upholds an order of declaratory relief granted to Lincoln County against Sheriff Gerald S. Lawson.

In 2003, former Sheriff Edwin Bentley entered into a contract with Evercom Systems, Inc. to provide telephone services to prisoners at the Lincoln County jail. In return, Evercom agreed to pay the sheriff a commission of 38% of the revenue derived from the prisoners’ collect calls, which amounted to $15,000 to $16,000 a year.

Bentley turned these proceeds over to Lincoln County’s general fund, which the County Commission used, in part, to pay for the prisoners’ care and for the operation and maintenance of the jail. The anticipated revenue was used to calculate and partially fund the sheriff’s budget.

When Lawson took office in 2005, he continued that practice. In January 2006 he amended the phone contract to allow him to purchase pre-paid calling cards to sell to prisoners. At some point in early 2006, Lawson stopped turning the phone commissions over to the ...

The Nebraska Court of Appeals held in this case that a prisoner's failure to exhaust his administrative remedies deprived the district court of jurisdiction over his civil rights lawsuit.

On May 22, 2003, Dukhan Iqraa Jihad Mumin, a Nebraska prisoner, filed an amended petition against the state prison system and T-Netix Telephone Company, which operated the prison "calling system." Mumin claimed, among other things, that the monitoring and recording of his "private telephone conversations involving discussions of medical and legal business, the improper disconnecting of telephone calls, and the denial of access to various telephone numbers" violated his statutory and constitutional rights. Mumin further claimed that monitoring prisoners' calls constituted illegal wiretapping since the defendants were not law enforcement personnel.

After characterizing Mumin's entire suit as brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the trial court dismissed his complaint for failing to exhaust his administrative remedies pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1997e (2000), commonly known as the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). Mumin appealed.

Because Mumin did not challenge the trial court's finding that his suit was brought pursuant to § 1983, the Court of Appeals limited its review specifically to whether, under the PLRA, "the exhaustion of administrative remedies is ...

Nevada Phone Contract Reduces Costs to Prisoners’ Families But Increases State’s Kickback

by David M. Reutter

A panel headed by Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons has approved a contract that reduces the cost of in-state collect calls from prisoners, but maintains exorbitant rates for out-of-state calls. The contract also increases the kickback percentage the state receives from its new prison phone service provider.

In February 2008, Nevada’s Board of Examiners approved a $7.2 million, 3-year contract with EMBARQ, a Kansas-based communications company, to provide collect-only phone services to Nevada’s 13,000 prisoners.

Under the contract, prisoners’ families will pay $1.45 for a local call that lasts 16 minutes. The price for a long distance in-state call will be $2.73. Those costs are down from the previous rates of $1.89 and $4.48, respectively. Prisoners who make out-of-state calls will continue to face price gouging, however, as such calls will cost $16.14, which is only slightly less than the $18.00 cost under MCI, the previous phone service provider.

In response to critics who decried such high rates, Governor Gibbons said, “if you don’t want to pay those prices, don’t go to prison.” His bureaucratic response ignored the fact that collect calls are paid “from ...

NY DOC’s Former 60% Prisoner Phone Call Kickback Scheme Did Not Violate Prisoners’ Families’ Constitutional Rights

In December, 2007, the New York State Supreme Court (this is a trial level court) held that the New York Department of Corrections’ (NYDOC) policy of contracting for prisoner collect telephone calls, which resulted in a 60% kickback to NYDOC from the telephone company, did not violate the constitutional rights of the recipients of those calls. While any recovery of past alleged overcharges was thus blunted, future rates have been contained by a progressive new New York state law (Corrections Law § 623, 12007, ch. 240, § 2), effective April 1, 2008, that bars NYDOC from gouging prisoners’ families with charges that exceed the reasonable cost of establishing and administering its telephone system. This ruling comes after the case had been remanded to the trial court by the state Court of Appeals, the highest court, which had reversed a prior dismissal of the case. See: Walton v. NY DOCS, 863 N.E.2d 1001 (NY 2007).

Ivey Walton and other friends and relatives of prisoners in NYDOC, supported by the Office of the Public Defender and New York State Defenders Association, sued NYDOC seeking relief from ...

Harris County, Texas Sends 600 Jail Prisoners to Private Pen in Louisiana

In December 2007, Harris County, Texas officials announced they were sending an additional 200 jail prisoners – 180 of them women – to a privately-run prison in northeast Louisiana. This brings the total number of Harris County prisoners incarcerated at the West Carroll Detention Center (WCDC) in Epps, Louisiana to 600. WCDC is owned and operated by Emerald Correctional Management.

Harris County, which includes the City of Houston, has a history of failing inspections by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) due to overcrowding and staffing issues. The Harris County Jail has failed every inspection since 2004, but finally passed an inspection in May 2007, shortly before shipping 400 prisoners to WCDC.

The county is also concerned about intervention from the U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ). It was reported in March 2008 that the DOJ had notified county officials that the jail was under investigation, with a focus on “protection of inmates from harm, environmental conditions, and inmate medical and mental health care.”

The Harris County jail system houses around 11,000 prisoners – 1,600 over capacity – and has received permission from the TCJS to use 2,000 ...

“The house always wins,” Warden Don Cabana proclaimed to the Sun Herald, a Mississippi newspaper, in July 2007. However, Harrison County, home of the Harrison County Adult Detention Center (ADC), has agreed to pay $3.5 million to the family of Jessie Lee Williams, Jr., who was brutally murdered at the hands of ADC guards – which sounds like a loss to everyone involved.

ADC Sgt. Ryan Michael Teel was convicted in Williams’ beating death and received two life sentences. Nine other jail guards pleaded guilty and received various terms of incarceration ranging from 4 months on house arrest to 4 years in prison for their roles in Williams’ death and other abuses at the ADC. Former Harrison Co. Sheriff George Payne, Jr. finally apologized to Williams’ family 17 months after his torturous death, just after the settlement was announced. The murder of Jessie Williams and the systemic pattern of abuses at the ADC are indicative of a much larger problem of brutality, corruption and malfeasance at Mississippi county jails.

Williams, 40, was a kind, slender man with seven children, six of whom were still minors when he died. He had a record of non-serious arrests and had been a trustee ...