National Roundup

Alabama
Judge: State has been ‘indifferent’ to isolated inmates
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge said Monday that Alabama has been “deliberately indifferent” about monitoring the mental health of state inmates placed in the isolation of segregation cells.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson issued the ruling days after attorneys for inmates said the suicide rate in state prisons has reached a crisis level.

“The court finds that the (Alabama prison system’s) failure to provide adequate periodic mental-health assessments of prisoners in segregation creates a substantial risk of serious harm for those prisoners,” Thompson wrote in the 66-page order.

Thompson wrote that prison officials have been “deliberately indifferent with regard to their failure to provide adequate periodic evaluations of mental health to prisoners in segregation.”

Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton said the department is reviewing the decision.

Thompson in 2017 wrote that mental health care in state prisons was “horrendously inadequate” and violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In his Monday order, Thompson said the failure to adequately monitor inmates in segregation contributes to the unconstitutional conditions.

Thompson directed the prison system and attorneys for inmates to confer on how to proceed.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing inmates in the ongoing class-action lawsuit over prison mental health care, praised the decision.

“It has been evident for years that ADOC has failed to identify, monitor, and properly care for people who have serious mental illnesses and who develop them in ADOC custody.  That systematic failure has led to needless suffering, especially for people in segregation,” said Maria Morris, senior supervising attorney at the SPLC.

The advocacy organization said Friday that there have been 13 suicides in 14 months.

“People are killing themselves in our prisons because conditions are horrendous,” Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen said at a news conference with the families of inmates.
The prison system said in a response Friday that it was working to address the issue, and said the suicide spike “calls into question the long-term effectiveness of the suicide prevention measures proposed by the SPLC” during the litigation.

Illinois
Governor announces ­justice reform initiative
CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday announced the creation of a new office that will address what he says is a broken justice system.

The Justice, Equity and Oppor­tunity Initiative will be headed by Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and is expected to look at criminal sentencing, education, poverty, and the link among the three.

“It’s time to modernize sentencing, especially for low-level drug offenses,” Pritzker said. “It’s time to reduce the recidivism rate and re-entry through a holistic approach that addresses opportunity both inside and outside of our prisons.”

Stratton said the JEO Initiative will move Illinois justice from a punitive system to one that examines the root causes of the issues the state faces.

Pritzker noted the state spends roughly $1.3 billion a year for the Department of Corrections, which houses about 43,000 inmates in a system made for about 32,000.

The governor’s order creating the new office spells out a number of general initiatives the administration will pursue to reduce the prison population such as developing “bias-free assessment tools” for judges to use to determine sentences. It also suggests the need for improved training within the Department of Corrections, which has faced numerous lawsuits over alleged discrimination and lack of access to health care.

Stratton said part of the initiative will focus on the legalization of marijuana.

“As we work on legalizing the adult use of cannabis, we will examine how to repair the harm that the war on drugs has had on so many communities of color,” Stratton said.

Stratton said she had not spoken to Democratic House Speaker Mike Madigan about the issue but would do so “if the need arises.”

Pritzker’s order creating the initiative calls for targeting poorer communities with economic development efforts that would improve access to professional licenses, state contracting opportunities, education and housing. It also calls for improving relations between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve.


California
Convicted ex-LA sheriff nears end of appeals to avoid prison
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca could face time behind bars after a federal court on Monday rejected the appeal of his conviction on corruption charges.

Baca, who is 76 and has Alzheimer’s disease, was sentenced to three years in prison for obstructing an FBI investigation into abuses at the nation’s largest jail system. He was also convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice and lying to federal authorities.

In his appeal, Baca’s attorneys argued the verdict should be reversed because it was tainted by rulings from U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson during the trial. They focused on Anderson’s decision to bar the jury from hearing testimony about Baca’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and about a conversation he had with an aide about the FBI’s investigation.

Either piece of information could have helped sway the jury in Baca’s favor, defense lawyers argued.

A three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected those claims, ruling that the trial was fair and the conviction legally sound.

The Los Angeles Times said Baca’s lawyers have a few last-ditch options available, including asking the full 9th Circuit court to hear the case.

Baca was convicted nearly six years after he learned that a jail inmate caught with a contraband cellphone was working to provide the FBI with evidence of brutal beatings by guards.

Prosecutors said at trial that once the FBI investigation was exposed, Baca met with other brass in the department to stall that probe and mislead their federal counterparts. But the plan backfired. Federal investigators turned their attention to taking down higher-ups who conspired with the longtime sheriff to kill the civil rights investigation.

He was sentenced in May 2017.

Baca, who spent nearly 15 years as sheriff, initially pleaded guilty to a single count of lying to federal investigators. He withdrew the plea after Anderson rejected a sentence of no more than six months as too lenient.

It is not known how much Baca’s cognitive health has deteriorated, if at all, in the 18 months since he was sentenced and how his illness could play into any attempts at leniency, the Times reported.