December 1, 2016 | Matt Farrand | Standard-Journal
Allegations of abuse at USP Lewisburg are still a common occurrence since the new security protocols were instilled in 2009. The prison uses hard restraints that cut off the inmates' circulation as well as other unnecessary punishments. David Sprout, a paralegal and member of the Lewisburg Prison Project, believes that some of the actions of the penitentiary can be seen as torture.
November 1, 2016 | Marcia Moore | The Daily Item
A joint National Public Radio and Marshall Project report on alleged abuse of inmates inside the U.S. Penitentiary at Lewisburg is prompting members of an interfaith organization against torture to call on the U.S. Attorney General’s Office to investigate.
“We are gravely concerned about this,” said the Rev. Laura Markle Downton, director of U.S. prisons policy and program at the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.
The NPR/Marshall Project report, “Inside Lewisburg Prison: A choice between a violent cellmate or shackles” includes claims The Daily Item has written about for years regarding inmate allegations of mistreatment at the federal prison since it was converted in 2009 into a Special Management Unit (SMU).
October 26, 2016 | Christie Thompson and Josh Shapiro | The Marshall Project
In this federal prison, inmates have a choice: live with a violent cellmate or end up in shackles.
On Feb. 3, 2011, corrections officers at Lewisburg federal penitentiary in rural Pennsylvania arrived outside Sebastian Richardson’s cell door. With them was a man looking agitated and rocking back and forth. He stared down at Richardson, who at 4 feet, 11 inches was nicknamed “Bam Bam.”
The man, officers told Richardson, was his new cellmate. The two would spend nearly 24 hours a day celled together in a concrete room smaller than a parking space.
Richardson, 51, didn’t know his new cellmate’s name, only that he also went by a nickname: "The Prophet." He had a habit of screaming songs or shouting the spelling of words for hours, as though competing in his own private spelling bee. There were also rumors that he had assaulted more than 20 previous “cellies.”
October 13, 2016 | Anne Maria Barry-Jester | FiveThirtyEight
Salvatore Chimenti already had advanced liver damage from the hepatitis C virus when he filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections in the summer of 2015. He wanted access to new and expensive drugs that cure the virus in 90 percent or more of people who take them. Because he is an inmate, when the DOC denied him the medication, the only way Chimenti could potentially get it was to sue. “When you’re in prison, you have no other option, this is your only medical provider. You cannot get a second opinion; you can’t pay for it yourself. You are completely under the control of the Department of Corrections and their medical provider,” said Su Ming Yeh, an attorney with the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project who is representing Chimenti in a class-action lawsuit.
September 9, 2016 | CBS Philly | Cherri Gregg
Members of MOVE rallied outside of the Philadelphia Department of Health to protest a recent federal court ruling denying critical Hepatitis C treatment for former death row inmate Mumia Abu Jamal. The ruling raises questions about inmate care.
“Nobody is immune to this kind of travesty of justice,” says Romona Africa, communications director for the MOVE Organization.
She joined concerned family and friends of Mumia Abu Jamal on Wednesday morning in a rally and press conference. The demonstration was made days after a federal district court judge denied Jamal access to critical treatment for his Hepatitis C.
November 3, 2015 | Dana DiFilippo | Philadelphia Daily News
Jamella Parks had been hooked on drugs for nearly three decades before she tried to sneak $68.52 worth of toiletries out of a Logan Rite Aid in January. It was far from her first arrest: Her record is riddled with crimes, mostly misdemeanors like prostitution and shoplifting, she committed to feed an addiction she couldn't shake.
This time, though, the arrest would be her death sentence.
Although she could have been freed on just $300 cash bail, the 43-year-old North Philly woman instead spent nearly six months behind bars before dying, in custody, of cancer.
June 2, 2015 | The Legal Intelligencer
Earlier this year, The Legal's editorial staff set out to select our latest group of Diverse Attorneys of the Year, our attempt to shine a light on the outstanding work being done by minority attorneys across Pennsylvania, whose work is sometimes overlooked by a profession still catching up when it comes to diversity.
SU MING YEH
Yeh is the managing attorney of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, an organization dedicated to providing assistance to incarcerated or institutionalized low-income people whose constitutional rights have been violated within the institution. Her work has seen her successfully argue before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in recent years. In addition to her legal representations, she is president of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Pennsylvania and has long been co-chair of its Marutani Fellowship Selection Committee, which provides stipends to Asian-American law students so they can take summer internship positions with public interest organizations or government agencies. She chairs the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Public Interest Section and serves on its Judicial Retention and Selection Committee, which has been busy this year, with 15 open judicial positions and dozens of candidates in Philadelphia. She also co-chairs the bar’s Civil Rights Committee.
June 13, 2011 | Amaris Elliott-Engel | The Legal Intelligencer
When Philadelphia’s inmates have sued the city over crowding in city jails, the litigation has resulted in caps on the number of inmates held by correctional authorities and decades of supervision by federal judges.
But what the litigation never seemed to accomplish - at least for very long - were significant, sustainable reductions in the prison population.
The latest litigation over conditions of confinement in the Philadelphia Prison System appears to be breaking with past history. The system is holding 7,955 inmates, down from a population bulge of 9,800 that criminal justice leaders worried would break 10,000. The system is designed for 6,800.
