Tag: prison

New York and New Jersey Want To Let Felons Serve on Juries. Here’s Why.

The vast majority of states—44, to be exact—suspend people from serving on juries when they are convicted of a felony, and in many states the suspension is permanent. That means millions of people—especially groups of people convicted at relatively high rates, such as black and Hispanic men—are disqualified from jury service, quietly resulting in what some have called the “whitewashing” of American juries.

At least two states, New York and New Jersey, would like to change that.

The New York proposal, which is currently under review by the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee, would repeal the clause in the state’s judiciary law that blocks individuals convicted of felonies from serving on juries. New Jersey’s bill, which was introduced in January and endorsed by Gov. Phil Murphy on May 1, would amend the equivalent clause in its code to permit most felons to serve on juries, barring only people convicted of murder and aggravated sexual assault.

“Jury exclusion laws bar more than 20 million people nationwide from serving,” said Wanda Bertram, a spokesperson for the Prison Policy Initiative. “With this bill, New Jersey has the chance to reverse one of the harshest jury exclusion laws in the country, and to set an example that other states can follow to make their criminal legal systems fairer and more effective.”

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Trans prisoner removed from California’s Chowchilla women’s correctional facility after raping female inmate

A trans-identifying male inmate at a California women’s prison has been moved to a men’s prison after being charged with raping a female inmate. Tremaine “Tremayne” Deon Carroll had been housed at the Central California Women’s Facility, located in Chowchilla. 

According to the Daily Mail, Carroll has been charged with two counts of rape and one count of dissuading a witness from testifying. One of Carroll’s alleged victims, Jane Doe, said she was attacked and raped by Carroll in a shower at the jail. 

Doe was in jail serving a short sentence for burglary. Sources close to the case said that Doe had asked prison authorities to change her cell. Doe chose to room with two female inmates and Carroll. Doe said that Carroll began expressing sexual interest when she moved to the cells, allegedly leaving her flirtatious notes and propositioning her on the second day Doe was in the cell. 

Doe said she turned down Carroll’s advances, but a day later she said Carroll attacked her when she was alone in the shower and raped her. Sources told the outlet that Doe was hospitalized and placed in chains during a pelvic exam. She was segregated when released from the hospital and strip-searched because Carroll claimed that Doe was the one that carried out the attack. 

Carroll has since been moved to Kern Valley State Prison, a male facility around two hours away from the women’s facility. 

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Judges Investigate ‘Dreadful’ MDC Brooklyn Prison Abuse Where Inmates Die Begging For Help As J6 Political Hostage Pleads For Emergency Surgery: ‘They Sent Me To Here to Set Me Up’

J6 political prisoner Ryan Samsel is pleading for assistance from prison guards, his attorney, and the American public to get to an emergency room immediately after strange lumps surfaced on the back of his neck while the blood clots in his leg and foot that he developed months ago remain dangerously untreated.

The new lumps may be malignant tumors or blood clots, but getting to a doctor or the life-saving surgery he was prescribed over three years ago, before his arrest for protesting at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, is an ongoing and uphill battle.

If Samsel suffers a medical emergency, it could take hours or days before anyone even notices while detained in perpetual lockdown in MDC Brooklyn, the jail system where Jeffrey Epstein allegedly killed himself, and inmates are known to die while begging for help from lazy, abusive prison staff.

And he suspects the notorious medical negligence within the understaffed correctional facility is exactly why the prosecutors and US District Judge Jia Cobb transferred him to the dangerous prison, “to set him up” to die or endure assaults while living on blood thinners.

“I’m on the eighth floor in a high-rise building in the back corner cell and literally in a corner and there is no call button. If I get sick, I might not see a CO for a full day. It’s dangerous here. It’s literally dangerous,” Samsel told The Gateway Pundit in an exclusive interview Wednesday.“ This place is as harsh as where Jeffrey Epstein died.

“They should not put this many inmates in the prison because they are understaffed, and we are constantly locked down. Judge Cobb knew how bad the conditions were in this jail a year and a half ago when she first sent me here.”

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Judge Who Put Transgender Child Rapist in Women’s Prison Nominated to U.S. District Court by Joe Biden

A judge who put a transgender child rapist in a women’s prison has been nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by Joe Biden.

Judge Sarah Netburn has served as a magistrate judge for 12 years.

The judge gained notoriety after moving William McClain, who now goes by “July Justine Shelby,” to a women’s prison against the recommendation of the Bureau of Prisons.

McClain served over two decades in prison for raping a 17-year-old girl and molesting a 9-year-old boy. He was arrested again in 2017 for distributing child pornography involving a young girl and an infant.

The Washington Times reports:

Under a Biden administration policy implemented in 2022, transgender women can be moved to a women’s facility on a case-by-case basis, based on “whether a placement would ensure the inmate’s health and safety, and whether the placement would present management or security problems.”

The policy directs that a transgender individual’s “own views with respect to his/her own safety must be given serious consideration.”

The prisoner claimed to be endangered in New York’s Otisville Correctional Institution, a federal medium-security men’s prison.

The Bureau of Prisons repeatedly denied the prisoner’s request to be transferred to a women’s prison, citing risks it would traumatize prisoners and possibly threaten their safety.

The judge, against all reasonable advice, decided to move the sexual predator to the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, which is a female prison in Texas.

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Transgender Inmate Who Said He Was “No Threat” To Women Charged With Sexual Assault After Transfer To Women’s Prison

A trans-identified male inmate appears to have been transferred back to a men’s prison after being charged with rape while in custody at a women’s prison. Tremaine “Tremayne” Deon Carroll, a male who identifies as a woman, was housed at the Central California Women’s Facility when the sexual assault took place but has since been moved to Kern Valley State Prison.

Carroll’s criminal history dates back to 1988, when he began participating in organized crime at just 15 years old. In 1990, Carroll would be convicted for his participation in an armed robbery where he and several other men broke into an apartment occupied by two women. The women were kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and held under demand of ransom.

Despite being only 17 years old, the brutality of the crime resulted in Carroll being charged as an adult with three counts of kidnapping for ransom, two counts of robbery, and three counts of oral copulation by force. However, a hung jury along with a number of other technical issues during the trial process resulted in the need for a retrial. Carroll ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of kidnapping in an effort to avoid a retrial on all of the charges.

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Female Inmate Allegedly Raped by Transgender Inmate in California Women’s Prison

A woman at the Central California Facility for Women says she witnessed the immediate aftermath of a jailhouse rape by a transgender inmate.

Mimi Le provided a sworn declaration to lawyers with the Women’s Liberation Front, which will be included in the organization’s case against California, according to evidence from the filing obtained by Reduxx.

Le reportedly said she was one of many inmates who saw events involving what was described as a “sexual assault” committed by a man who identifies as a woman and was therefore locked up in a women’s prison.

On May 19, a female inmate was taken to a medical-administrative building after other female inmates reported to staff that she had been raped, Le explained, adding that she found the woman to be “barely conscious.”

Less than an hour later, the female victim was taken away on a stretcher under a “Code 3” alert, which means a person is unresponsive and unable to be revived via immediate methods, Le added.

Le and other inmates reportedly identified the alleged assailant as Jonathan Robertson, a biologically male transgender individual going by the name Siyaah Skylit.

Multiple inmates said they had heard Robertson shouting, “Fuck all you bitches. I’ll rape you. I’ll rape your mama. I’ll fuck all you bitches up — there is nothing you bitches can do.” He has also spit at fellow inmates, the women said.

“This was very triggering and saddening for everybody,” Le reportedly wrote in her declaration. “To be threatened by a man with doing a thing that he can do, that he is capable of doing, that he may already have done to other women, is terrifying.”

“They were concerned and discussed how to protect themselves; I convinced them to just go to their rooms while I asked for an update from the Captain to figure out how to proceed,” Le added.

Later, Le said she went to correctional staff to inquire about what, if anything, would be done about Robertson’s threatening behavior, at which point she learned he “had already been released back onto the yard.”

But “once the Captain learned of the rape threats, he decided along with the Sergeant to move [him] to administrative segregation,” the inmate said, adding that “before they could do that, the Warden overruled them, saying that an inmate-to-inmate threat is not an offense sufficient.”

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Ukraine Passes Bill To Recruit Prisoners For Depleted Army Ranks

The severe manpower crisis of Ukraine’s armed forces continues to be on display, particularly after the recent decision of the government to deny embassy and consular services for Ukrainian men of fighting age who live abroad but refuse to come back home.

Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday just once again upped the controversy and advanced a dramatic change in law and national policy. It passed a bill enabling select prisoners to be released in order to fight in the armed forces.

“The parliament has voted ‘yes,'” MP Olena Shuliak, head of Zelensky’s party, announced in a social media post. “The draft law opens the possibility for certain categories of prisoners who expressed a desire to defend their country to join the Defense Forces,” she said.

Ironically Moscow has previously come under international condemnation and mockery for just such a policy.

AFP and other international outlets acknowledged this as follows: “Long-opposed to the measure and having criticized Moscow’s mobilization of prisoners to fill its ranks, Kyiv has recently U-turned amid fresh Russian advances on the battlefield,” a report said.

The legislation still has to be signed by parliament’s chairperson and President Zelensky in order to come into force as an active policy. The bill includes the following reported stipulations and parameters:

  • Prisoners must volunteer
  • Only those with three or more years left on their sentence can apply
  • Those convicted of violent sexual crimes are not eligible
  • Former high-ranking officials and those guilty of “serious corruption” are not eligible
  • Prisoners who killed two or people are not eligible

One glaring aspect is that it appears literal murderers can possibly still go free if they join the army, so long as they killed no more than one person, based on the AFP’s reporting

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Trans-Identified Male Rapist Housed In Women’s Prison Files Lawsuit Demanding To Be Released Into Women’s General Population

A trans-identified male inmate serving three life sentences for crimes against women has filed a discrimination lawsuit in an attempt to be transferred into the general population among female prisoners. Thomas Preston Lamb, also known as Michelle Renee Lamb, is currently detained in a women’s facility in Topeka, Kansas, but has been kept separate from the female inmates — an arrangement Lamb deems unacceptable.

Lamb, 82, alleges he is being discriminated against by the staff of Topeka Correctional Facility and the Kansas Department of Corrections on the grounds that he is being held in restricted housing instead of being allowed to frequently interact with incarcerated women.

Lamb first filed his legal claim against Governor Laura Kelly, Topeka Correctional Facility, and the Kansas Department of Corrections last November, and a ruling is expected to be reached by early May.

Authorities at Topeka Correctional Facility (TCF) made the decision to separate Lamb from the female prison population due to both his history as a sex offender and his conduct while in prison. Lamb, who was quietly transferred into the female prison estate in January of 2023, has repeatedly ignored no-contact orders and has been sexually harassing female correctional officers. On at least one occasion, he was charged with lewd conduct with a female inmate.

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Pay to stay: Florida inmates charged for prison cells long after incarceration

It’s a common saying: You do the crime, you do the time. But when people are released from prison, freedom is fragmented. It marks the start of new hardships, impacting families and communities.

Part of that is due to a Florida law many people are unaware of, further punishing second-chance citizens, preventing them from truly moving on.

It’s called “pay-to-stay”, charging inmates for their prison stay, like a hotel they were forced to book. Florida law says that cost, $50 a day, is based on the person’s sentence. Even if they are released early, paying for a cell they no longer occupy, and regardless of their ability to pay.

Not only can the state bill an inmate the $50 a day even after they are released, Florida can also impose a new bill on the next occupant of that bed, potentially allowing the state to double, triple, or quadruple charge for the same bed.

Critics call it unconstitutional. Shelby Hoffman calls it a hole with no ladder to climb out.

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NEW YORK JAIL THROWS MAN IN SOLITARY FOR REFUSING TO WORK WITHOUT PAY, LAWSUIT SAYS

Pretrial detainees at New York’s Broome County Jail are forced to work without pay and threatened with solitary confinement if they refuse to submit to forced labor, according to a lawsuit filed in state court on Thursday. The suit, filed on behalf of Thomas Florance, who says he received no pay for weeks of labor while detained at the facility pretrial despite promises of compensation, alleges the practice violates the Thirteenth Amendment prohibition against slavery other than as a punishment for a crime, New York State Labor Law, and New York’s Trafficking Victims Protection Act. 

This February, after nearly 500 hours of unpaid work in the jail’s kitchen, Florance decided he’d had enough, according to the lawsuit. He refused to work and was thrown in solitary confinement, where he was held for a week until he was able to make bail. 

Florance is seeking lost wages along with compensatory and punitive damages. The complaint, filed by the Legal Services of Central New York, a nonprofit law firm that has sued Broome County multiple times over conditions at the jail, names Broome County and its sheriff, as well as two jail employees and the facility’s for-profit dining services provider, Trinity Services Group. 

The lawsuit alleges corrections officers at the Binghamton, New York, routinely assure detainees they will be paid for their labor at the jail. But once assigned a job, they receive no compensation and are instead forced to work under threat of disciplinary sanctions, including “keep lock,” a form of solitary confinement. 

“The threats by the Jail staff create a culture of fear among the prisoner workers,” the complaint states. “The prisoners know that if they refuse to work, they will be punished, and if they lose their accumulated good time, will end up incarcerated for a longer period.”

Trinity Services is a major beneficiary of the free labor that results from this arrangement, according to the lawsuit. The contract between Broome County and Trinity requires the jail to provide seven incarcerated people to work in food service, the complaint states, which allows both Trinity and the County to avoid paying minimum wage, state-mandated benefits, and payroll taxes. 

Trinity employees train and supervise the detainees and may “report misconduct or poor prisoner work” to jail staff, which can result in them being placed in solitary confinement, according to the complaint. 

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