Transgender inmate says prison wrongly halted hormone meds

June 26, 2017 | Terrie Morgan-Besecker | The Times-Tribune

Steven Fritz, 44, of Scranton, received hormone medications while incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Houtzdale. She expected to continue the medications when she was incarcerated at the county jail on new theft charges, but the medical staff abruptly stopped the drugs after just three days, she said.

Joseph D’Arienzo, spokesman for the county, declined to discuss the case, citing medical privacy laws. He confirmed the county has no policy regarding hormone treatment for transgenders.

The prison’s denial of treatment is at odds with the state Department of Corrections’ policy regarding hormone treatment for transgenders and likely violates Fritz’s constitutional rights, which could lead to a lawsuit, attorneys for a transgender advocacy group and prisoners rights group said.

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Who’s Next: Law; Meet 12 Pittsburghers shaping the legal community

June 15, 2017 | Sarah Anne Hughes and MK Slaby | The Incline

From energy to entertainment to the environment and more, our seventh Who’s Next class is filled with young legal experts working across Pittsburgh.

One works for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. Another works to protect constitutional rights of those who are incarcerated. Others have opened their own firms. And multiple started in other careers before going to law school.

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Lawsuit: Mentally ill inmates are being mistreated

June 13, 2017 | Marcia Moore | The Daily Item

Seriously mentally ill inmates at the U.S. penitentiary at Lewisburg are being given word games and Sudoku puzzles instead of treatment and medication, according to a class action lawsuit filed against the federal bureau of prisons.

The suit, filed by the DC Prisoner’s Project of the Washington Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, claims prisoners received minimal interaction with counselors, often just a minute or two each week and through cell doors.

Men with lifetime histories of schizophrenia, paranoia, bipolar disorder, depression and other serious mental conditions often receive no treatments at all and are held in cells, often with another inmate, for 23 hours or more a day. Instead of treatment, the suit alleges, these inmates receive Sudoku puzzles, word games and coloring pages.

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Mandatory Prison Sentences Aren't Necessary in Pa.

April 21, 2017 | Angus Love, Esq. | The Legal Intelligencer

On the evening of Jan. 22, 2012, John Morales tried to sell a bag of weed to Donald Clark in the parking lot of Rutter’s gas station in Waynesboro. Little did John know that Clark was a confidential ­informant working for the local police. Donald insisted that they do the transaction in the parking lot of a local church, claiming he didn’t know where the gas station was. In the church was a nursery. At the subsequent trial after John was busted, the district attorney demanded a mandatory two-year sentence under the Drug Free School Zone Act because of the nursery which triggered the enhancements. This law applies regardless of whether there was any notice that the nursery was considered to be a school and within a school zone, regardless of whether schools were in ­session. The law also includes transactions within 1,000 feet of bus routes regardless of whether the buses are running or if school is in session.

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Federal penitentiary inmates down by 500

February 4, 2017 | Marcia Moore | The Daily Item

Due to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons' plans to limit the time inmates can spend in the SMU program, the Lewisburg Penitentiary now houses about 500 fewer inmates. Dave Sprout, a paralegal with the Lewisburg Prison Project, believes that this change will lower the number of violent incidents that take place due to the amount of cell space this change frees up. 

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