Quoted

, , , ,

An inmate at the Lebanon County jail claims the punishment for not cutting his hair violates his First Amendment rights

, , , ,

February 27, 2020 | Fox 43 | Harri Leigh

WATCH TV NEWS REPORT HERE

LEBANON, Pa. —

Eric McGill is alone in a cell at the Lebanon County Correctional Facility. He’s been in solitary confinement for more than a year because he won’t cut his dreadlocks. On Feb. 20 McGill filed a civil action against Lebanon County and three administrators of the county jail, claiming they are violating his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

McGill, 27, who was arrested in January 2019 for his alleged role in a shooting that injured four people, wears dreadlocks as part of his Rastafarian religion.

Rastafarians do not cut their hair, following the “Nazarite vow” described in the Old Testament.

”He believes that his hair has spiritual significance. He believes that it connects him with his ancestors, he believes that it gives strength and purity that he needs for the afterlife,” said Matthew Feldman, a lawyer with the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project representing McGill.

The Lebanon County Correctional Facility allows long hair in ponytails, but not dreads. When McGill would not cut his off, he was placed in administrative segregation, also known as solitary confinement. McGill’s lawyers said this punishment is denying his First Amendment right to freedom of religion and Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law.

, , , ,

His hair is sacred. But to get out of solitary confinement, his jailers say he must cut it off.

, , , ,

February 25, 2020 | PA Post | Joseph Darius Jafaari

A Rastafarian inmate has been in solitary confinement for a year. The jail’s warden said he can get out if he cuts his hair.

The Lebanon County Correctional Facility’s handbook says no inmate can have long hair unless it is worn in a ponytail or a bun. But for many Black inmates, that rule doesn’t apply. Instead, they are placed in solitary confinement if they refuse to cut their hair.

One inmate currently in segregated housing says that policy violates his religious rights. Eric McGill, who is Black, wears his hair in dreadlocks. A practicing Rastafarian, McGill has refused to cut his hair since he was taken into custody more than a year ago. (Rastafarians do not cut their hair, ascribing to a strict reading of the Old Testament that forbids it.)

McGill, 27, reached out to PA Post in January this year, saying he was placed in segregated housing on Jan. 19, 2019, because of his refusal to cut his dreadlocks.

“I’ve haven’t cut them due to my beliefs and way of life,” he said in an online message to PA Post.

Inmates kept in solitary confinement are allowed just five to 20 minutes of time outside their cell per day. McGill is also limited to two hours a day to make phone calls to his family — between midnight and 2 a.m. Not uncommon for people who are in solitary for extended periods of time, McGill has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression and anxiety, according to court records.

In an affidavit filed with the court, Robert J. Karnes, the warden of the Lebanon County jail, said inmates who choose to cut off their dreadlocks are able to leave solitary confinement.

Though not mentioned in the handbook directly, dreadlocks and other long hair styles are forbidden, corrections officials say, because inmates can use the hair to hide weapons or contraband.

According to the affidavit Karnes signed, McGill hasn’t committed any other infractions to justify solitary confinement.

, , , ,

Transgender Pa. prison inmate sues Corrections Dept., claiming they were denied proper healthcare

, , , ,

February 12, 2020 | Pennsylvania Capital-Star | Elizabeth Hardison

A transgender prisoner at a women’s prison in northwestern Pennsylvania is suing the state Department of Corrections, saying that bureaucratic hurdles, inadequate medical training, and invasions of privacy put them on a path to depression and self-mutilation.

The lawsuit, filed last month in the U.S. District Court for Pennsylvania’s Western District in Pittsburgh, seeks monetary damages and immediate medical care and housing accommodations for the prisoner, who was identified at birth as a woman, but does not identify as male or female now, according to court documents. 

It also names a dozen corrections employees as defendants, including Corrections Secretary John Wetzel and prison psychologists, doctors and staff.

Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said on Tuesday that the agency does not comment on litigation.

The prisoner, identified in court filings by the pseudonym Sam Doe, is being represented by the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, a statewide legal aid organization that litigates prisoner civil rights claims. 

The attorneys say the prison’s failure to properly administer Doe’s testosterone treatment caused Doe significant anguish and physical harm. That violated Doe’s rights under the eighth amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which outlaws cruel and unusual punishment for prisoners, they said.

Read more →

, , , , ,

2019 Annual Report from the frontlines of the fight for prisoner's rights

, , , , ,

2019 was an exceptional year for the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. We are on the frontlines every day working to ensure that people behind bars are afforded their constitutional rights and we challenge the system when these rights are violated. In 2019 year alone PILP won a groundbreaking ruling for immigrants’ rights at ICE facilities, secured settlements and policy change for women who were sexually abused, held an institution accountable for inhumane, punitive solitary confinement, and won a class action gender discrimination case.

Read more about our work safeguarding prisoners’ rights, our dedicated staff, and how you can get involved HERE

, , ,

Jury finds Berks County guilty of gender discrimination.

, , ,

November 20, 2019 | Reading Eagle | Karen Shuey

The federal trial centered on allegations that women assigned trusty status were treated differently than men who were housed at the Berks County Reentry Center.

A federal jury last week found that Berks County violated the constitutional rights of women assigned trusty status incarcerated at the Berks County Prison by denying them the same access to furloughs as men who hold the same status.

The case centered around a lawsuit filed by former inmates Theresa Victory and Alice Velazquez-Diaz, alleging that women assigned trusty status are treated differently than men who hold the same status and are housed at the Berks County Reentry Center. The action aimed to provide female trusty inmates at the prison the same freedoms and opportunities given to their male counterparts.

At the conclusion of a weeklong trial in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, a jury of eight found that the two women were subjected to discrimination claims under the 14th Amendment. In addition, the jury awarded $2,800 in compensatory damages to Victory, who has since married and changed her name to Theresa Bohning, finding that the discriminatory treatment caused her harm.

Attorney Su Ming Yeh of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, which represented the women, applauded the outcome of the trial.

"We are pleased that the jury recognized that Berks County was refusing to provide equal opportunities to incarcerated women in connecting with their families and preparing for reentry back into society," Yeh said in a press release.

Read more →

, , ,

Pennsylvania restricts inmate mail. Prison drugs are down. But is it legal? A federal judge will decide

, , ,

February 19, 2019 | The Morning Call | Steve Esack

Criminal defense lawyers, including those who work with death row inmates, stopped sending legal documents in the mail to Pennsylvania prison inmates for fear their privacy was being compromised by government officials, according to testimony at a federal hearing Tuesday.

The lawyers testified in support of two consolidated lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg. The lawsuits challenge the legality of a 2018 state policy of screening inmates’ mail for synthetic drugs.

The Department of Corrections’ policy prohibits inmates from getting mail delivered directly from lawyers, family and friends. It was instituted last summer in an attempt to stem an influx of illegal synthetic drugs, primarily k2, from being dipped and dried onto mail. The influx led to a rash of security and medical problems, and a 12-day lockdown of all state prisons.

Read more →

,

A juvenile lifer spent 50 years in prison. Now that he’s out, he may have nowhere to go.

,

February 5, 2019 | Philadelphia Daily News | Samantha Melamed

Freddie Nole was a teenager last time he walked free back in 1969, when Richard Nixon was president and City Hall was still the tallest building in Philadelphia.

In January 2019, at age 68, Nole was released on parole. He’s trying to catch up on nearly half a century of lost time: going to church with his wife of 34 years, Susan Beard-Nole, and sharing home-cooked meals for the first time in decades. But everything still seems strange and overwhelming: the expansive restaurant menus (he asks Beard-Nole, 72, to order for him); the complicated new iPhone (he kept hanging up midcall); the confusing power locks on his wife’s car.

Read more →

, , ,

‘You’re Going to Let Me Die From This’: Prisoners Fight to Access a Hepatitis-C Cure

, , ,

January 25, 2019 | The Nation | Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg

On May 15, 2017, after serving 37 years, David Maldonado was released from prison. He had been sentenced to life for a murder he committed when he was 16. But for Maldonado, getting out was about more than freedom; his release might have also saved his life. In 1997, Maldonado was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C—a disease, now curable, that the state of Pennsylvania had refused to treat. “Society really didn’t care whether I lived or died,” he told me recently.

Hepatitis C is caused by a virus that infects and inflames the liver; it’s spread through blood, most often via intravenous drug use. Between 75 and 85 percent of those infected with hepatitis C develop chronic hepatitis C, which can lead to liver scarring, liver cancer, cirrhosis, and death. It’s the most deadly infectious disease in the United States, killing around 20,000 people a year—more than the next 60 infectious diseases combined.

Read more →