August 2, 2019
The Board of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project announced that Angus Love will be stepping down as Executive Director at the end of 2019 after many years of leadership and service. Angus will stay on in a consulting role during 2020 to assist the Project with the transition to a new Executive Director to ensure that the mission to serve clients with nowhere else to turn continues without interruption.
Mike Carroll
Board Chair
July 26, 2019 | The Morning Call | Peter Hall
Faced with a federal lawsuit over a guard’s repeated sexual assaults of a Honduran refugee, employees of a Berks County detention center where immigrants are held, have asked a court to throw out the woman’s claims that her constitutional rights had been violated.
Lawyers for the director and employees of the Berks Family Residential Center argued they can’t be held liable for failing to stop what they characterized as a consensual sexual relationship between a guard and an immigration detainee.
In a decision earlier this month that bolsters the right of immigrants being held while their cases are processed, a federal appeals court rejected the county workers’ claims and cleared the way for a trial that could expose the inner workings of the controversial Berks center.
July 3, 2019
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Rebecca Susman, rsusman@pailp.org, 412-254-4771
The US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit issued an important ruling in favor of our client, E.D., upholding the constitutional rights of immigrants held at the Berks Residential Family Center and affirming that the laws protecting incarcerated people from abuse also apply to those held within the ICE facility.
The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project represents E.D., a Honduran woman who, after fleeing violence and sexual assault, was detained at Berks Residential Family Center while seeking asylum with her three-year-old son. E.D. was sexually assaulted by immigration staff member Daniel Sharkey during her detention at the ICE facility. He was ultimately convicted of the institutional sexual assault. Other employees at the immigration detention center were aware of the ongoing harassment and abuse but did not try to intervene or stop the assault. The case, E.D. v Sharkey, is against Daniel Sharkey, as well as other Berks County employees for their failure to protect E.D. from abuse.
Affirming the rights of immigrants in ICE detention, the Court held that constitutional protections against sexual assault do apply to people detained at the Berks ICE facility and, while in custody, they cannot consent to sexual contact with employees. The Court additionally found that supervisors, personnel, and colleagues have a duty to monitor known sexual misconduct between employees and detainees and to intervene. In affirming the opinion of the District Court allowing E.D.’s claims to proceed, the Third Circuit held: "we necessarily address whether immigration detainees are entitled to the same constitutional protections afforded by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as pre-trial detainees. We hold that immigration detainees are entitled to such protections.” (Opinion at 3)
“We are pleased that the Third Circuit has confirmed that immigration detainees have the same constitutional protections as other detainees, including the right to be free of sexual assault from a government employee while confined.” stated Su Ming Yeh, Deputy Director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project
July 2, 2019 | Reading Eagle | Karen Shuey
PHILADELPHIA, PA —
The victim of sexual assault at the hands of a Berks County Residential Center employee can move ahead with her lawsuit against the county and several staff members of the facility, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
The ruling stems from a June 2016 civil suit filed in federal court by the victim — who was 19 when the assault occurred in 2014 — alleging the county failed to implement policies to prevent the assault and that staff members at the facility were deliberately indifferent to the assault.
The county and several staff members named in the suit filed an appeal days before the trial was set to begin in April 2018.
The county asked the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia to dismiss the case while the staff members asked the court to grant them qualified immunity — a legal doctrine that shields government officials from being sued for misconduct unless their actions violate established federal law or constitutional rights.
The appeal was denied by a three-judge panel. U.S. District Judge Luis Felipe Restrepo wrote the opinion.
In the 16-page ruling, the judges affirmed that immigration detainees are entitled to the same constitutional protections afforded to all pretrial detainees by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. And, because of that finding, the suit against the county and staff members at the facility can proceed.
“… We agree there is enough evidence to support an inference that the defendants knew of the risk facing [the victim], and that their failure to take additional steps to protect her — acting in their capacity as either a coworker or supervisor — could be viewed by a fact finder as the sort of deliberate indifference to a detainee's safety that the Constitution forbids,” Restrepo wrote in the ruling.
Attorneys should send all legal correspondence to the prison, NOT Smart Communications. That mail will be opened in their presence and they will be given the original.
If your client received legal mail while the DOC was copying and confiscating legal mail, the DOC will be contacting them to decide whether to immediately destroy or return that mail.
Visit the DOC’s website (www.cor.pa.gov) and sign up for a new attorney control number. Include a valid email address as the DOC will be emailing you a WEEKLY code in addition to your control number.
When sending mail:
1. Place the attorney control number on a removable sticker on the outside of the envelope.
2. Place a second removable sticker on the outside of the envelope with the current weekly code.
ALL LEGAL MAIL WITHOUT A VALID ATTORNEY CONTROL NUMBER WILL BE RETURNED TO SENDER. If the mail has a valid control number, but not a valid weekly code, the DOC will contact you via phone and/or email to verify that you sent the mail before delivering.
Under the new policy, attorneys can no longer send any documents that were not printed/copied in their offices. This means attorneys cannot return original documents (grievances, etc) to people in DOC custody. Attorneys have until July 7, 2019, to return any originals currently in their possession. After that, if there are extenuating circumstances, attorneys can contact the business office of the prison, or the Office of Chief Counsel to make arrangements.
If you experience any issues or have any concerns with your legal mail under this new policy, please contact Alexandra Morgan-Kurtz, staff attorney in the Pittsburgh office of PILP via email (amorgan-kurtz@pailp.org).
Attorneys should send all legal correspondence to you at the prison where you are located. That mail will be opened in your presence and you will be given the original.
If you received legal mail while the DOC was copying and confiscating legal mail, the DOC should be contacting you. You will be allowed to choose whether your original mail is immediately destroyed, or returned to sender (at no cost to you).
IMPORTANT CHANGE TO LEGAL MAIL: Under the new policy, attorneys can no longer send you any documents that were not printed/copied in their offices. This means attorneys cannot return original documents you send them.
You have a choice:
· Keep your originals and mail your attorneys a copy OR
· Mail your originals to your attorney and have them send you copies.
In light of this change, the DOC will be increasing the amount of money available to indigent individuals for copying. You will also no longer be required to submit original documents in grievance or misconduct appeals.
You should tell your attorneys that under the DOC’s new policy, they must sign up for a new attorney control number. Your attorney must provide an accurate email address, as the DOC will be emailing a weekly code that must also be placed on the outside of legal mail. Attorneys can request a new control number by visiting the DOC’s website, www.cor.pa.gov. For more information on how these changes affect attorneys, they can also visit PILP’s website, www.pailp.org.
If your legal mail…
· is copied after April 6, 2019
· is returned to your attorney
· is significantly delayed
· or there are any other issues
File a grievance immediately.
Write to the Pittsburgh office of PILP: 100 Fifth Ave, Ste 900, Pittsburgh, Pa 15222.
February 22, 2019
HARRISBURG – Lawyers for four civil rights organizations and one person who is currently incarcerated announced today that they are finalizing the details of a settlement of their lawsuits challenging the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections’ policy of copying and storing legal mail. The four organizations challenging the policy issued the following statement in response to the developments in the case:
“We appreciate that the department has agreed that, beginning April 6, they will stop copying and storing prisoners’ legal mail. The revised screening procedures will respect the rights of prisoners to confidential and privileged attorney-client communications without compromising the department's efforts to prohibit drug use in the prisons.”
The organizational plaintiffs, Pennsylvania’s four largest prisoners’ rights groups, are the Abolitionist Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Amistad Law Project, and the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project (PILP). Volunteer attorneys from the law firm Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, led by partner Keith Whitson, are also representing the plaintiffs. PILP, et al. v. Wetzel was combined with another challenge, Hayes v. Wetzel, which was brought by Davon Hayes, who is a prisoner at SCI-Smithfield in Huntingdon.
More information is available at aclupa.org/PILP.
