Blog Archive

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Shanking at Perryville in Goodyear AZ (women's prison)

Shawna reported to me that there had been a huge increase in violence on the Lumley unit since the mass moving of inmates.  This move was done extremely unprofessionally with no concern whatsoever for the women or their belongings.   This followed with a shanking last week, CSI coming to Lumley to find the shank, which they did, and most important...a young woman was shanked resulting in blood loss and many sutures.  The response time of the staff to get this woman medical care was too long, she might have bled to death.  Perryville needs to better train for such incidents.  The young woman is okay but very sore.  Perryville, when you treat inmates like crap, this type of stuff happens.  

Long detailed yard report to come from Shawna.   

Perryville, if you are reading, and we know you will...I totally understand you are understaffed 
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Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Arizona News from LifeLines


ARIZONA NEWS – WINTER 2018   Carole Butcher/Linda Colbourn (Caretaking)

Hello. Firstly, as you all know, Lindesay has stepped down as your Coordinator and we would like to thank her for all the hard work and dedication she has shown to you all since she became your Coordinator in 2015. Carole, who has been your Coordinator before and Linda, who has been the Ohio Coordinator for many years will be looking after the state of Arizona until a new Coordinator can be found.

It seems that the general prison population is not happy with having death row inmates in their midst and this is causing a great deal of friction.

We bring you good news that Kevin Miles’ death sentence was vacated and changed to Life without Parole earlier this year. He was moved off the row in May 2018. We send our best wishes for the future to Kevin.
Gov. Doug Ducey said he will obey Arizona law and not Pope Francis who has now
declared that the death penalty is unacceptable in all cases. But the governor said that, at least for the moment, he doesn't have to make that choice.

The issue arises because the Pope, in the strongest statement ever, said in August that executions are ‘an attack’ on human dignity. And Francis promised to work ‘with determination’ to abolish capital punishment wherever it still exists. ‘I, of course, am going to listen to what the pope says,’ Ducey said when asked about it. The governor is a practicing Catholic. ’At the same time, I took an oath to uphold the law in Arizona,’ he continued.
’And I'm going to continue to uphold the law.’ (Source: wmicentral.com)
In mid August the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the guilty verdicts and death penalty of Jason E Bush. Justice John Pelander, writing for the court, rejected a series of arguments presented by attorneys for our friend that he did not get a fair trial.
Those contentions ranged from the procedures used in the pretrial questioning of potential jurors to the contention that the jury did not properly consider his mental illness and troubled past in deciding to sentence him to death. But the court split on the question of the death penalty with Appellate Judge Lawrence saying he believes the death penalty violates a state constitutional provision against cruel and unusual punishment.
Barry Lee Jones could be freed from death row after a federal judge overturned his
1995 conviction for the murder of a 4-year-old girl.
State prosecutors had until mid-September to re-file charges against him or he will be released from prison. This is according to a July 31 order from U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess that cited poor performance by Jones’ attorneys and a rush to judgment by investigators. The Arizona Attorney General's Office filed notice that it plans to appeal.
(Sources: Tucson.com)
In mid September The Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments appealing the dismissal of a case that accused the Arizona Department of Corrections of concealing information about the state's executions; .Arizona's programs for execution have been under fire for several years. In the wake of Wood's botched execution, then-Governor Jan Brewer called for a full review of the process. In a December 2016 settlement, Arizona agreed to never again use midazolam in a lethal-injection execution. That same month, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow ruled that the press and the public have a First Amendment right to view executions in their entirety.
(Source: Courthouse News)
 We continue to hold all our friends on the row in our thoughts and we send all of you our warmest greetings for the festive season.