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Comment by dvektor | Hacker News Reader

I remember when I first went to jail in 2013, every month paying for a $20 phone card and getting to make a 25 minute "long-distance" call. I couldn't believe that this was legal, and even if it was, I was in disbelief that morally, this was allowed to go on. There are so many other similarities in corrections that my family and I would unfortunately go on to discover over the years, things that until you experience them firsthand, either by yourself or a loved one being incarcerated, that you likely wouldn't believe.

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Amen, brother. I was an advocate for prison reform before getting locked up, but once you're inside and you find out how truly insane everything is, you realize that jails and prisons are where decency and kindness go to die.

I'm in a Zoom conference with the federal court in 45 mins trying to get two constitutional violations at the biggest jail in the country fixed, but obviously the government's lawyers are maintaining that this jail is too big to fix the problems. The judge's line is that if the smallest jails in the country can not violate the rights of the detainees, why can't the biggest? The government is adamant that their size protects them from having to say, provide a working mail system.

It is Teams, not Zoom. I'm in the conference with the federal judge and the government lawyers right now. Currently they are maintaining their stance that they are unwilling to fix constitutional violations. They'd rather go to trial and lose and pay my lawyer the 7 figure sum in fees he's owed, than agree to fix the conditions.

This is the sort of people that run our jails and prisons -- and spend your tax dollars.

OK, settled the case. Luckily my lawyer was working pro bono as he racked up over $600K in billable hours I understand. I'm waiting for an email back to see if I can discuss it or whether it is NDA'd lol. The judge said that she had never seen any institution so stubbornly against fixing what they were legally entitled to fix.

"Defendant and Plaintiff further agree that if asked about the terms and contents of this Agreement, they will respond only by stating that “the matter has been resolved” or “I cannot comment” without any further elaboration."

They tried to insert this clause, but my lawyer had it excised.

Why lift a finger to do anything if you can just spend taxpayers' dollars on a settlement?

That's what the judge said. She said normally they'd either throw money at it, or fix the problem. In this case they were willing to do neither. Eventually got them to make a tiny policy change and a statement that they will uphold the change with retraining, and I got $3250.

What happens if they don't?

Your lawyer made $600K and you got $3250?

No, the lawyer was working pro bono. 600k is what those hours would have cost.

This. He would have (probably) got the money if it had gone to trial and we had won.

if you think the whole "600k is what it would have cost" thing is crazy, then stay far away from our medical system! In medicine 600k is getting off easy

What is the billable rate? 1000 per hour?

Unironically yes. I remember going to the ER in a rural town in Texas when I was 18 and getting the bill for the doctor and it was $800/hr.

The hospitals hire many ER doctors as “contractors” so they can crank the rates up. But the doctor works for a conglomerate that rents them out to the hospital for a fixed salary and the conglomerate profits the spread.

I was in the ER with my wife for an asthma issue for about 90 minutes (no ambulance), and the bill after insurance was $1,750.

'It looks like your client Bob is no longer housed in this facility and therefore no longer has standing. Case dismissed. If you can find someone else willing to initiate a case, you can start the year long process that got you here again. Of course, if they happen to get transferred to a new institution should their case make it this far in the process that case will also be dismissed for lack of standing.' -- The US Justice System

This ^^ person knows their law.

Yes, my case was (probably, maybe) barred from injunctive relief because you can't sue to fix problems at a jail or prison if they release you[0]. Some people have been prematurely released just to activate this option.

You can (sometimes) get declaratory judgment though, which at least declares you a winner and you can then pass the baton to the guy behind you who is still behind bars and use that as a stick to hit the institution over the head with.

And sometimes you can also get monetary damages too, which can be another stick to hit them with.

[0] some exceptions apply if the case is likely to repeat itself, but this argument is very, very hard to muster

Is it not possible to class-action the whole prison population at that location? For large prisons, is that still not enough people?

Or does class-action not apply to this kind of violation at all?

No, you absolutely can, but you need representation. Most prisoner rights suits are started without lawyers, and the courts won't generally allow class actions without a lawyer, so there aren't many filed.

My case involved access to news and mail delivery. The mail delivery claim is left open for a future class action as the judge made an excellent ruling on it, just short of handing me victory. The person behind me can cite that persuasive ruling to bring a class action if they can find representation.

Any chance you can cite the case, when decision is published?

Feel however you want but whatever the judge says goes. If they want to dismiss a case for a lack of standing they will.

Law doesn't work like cryptocurrencies. Two different judges can see the same motions and make completely different judgements.

Not very good laws then innit? If you can read whatever you want as a judge.

Trial court judges generally do what they want, especially at the state level in the USA.

The appellate courts do the real work of determining the legality of the judge's decisions and fixing them where necessary. If you don't have the resources to marshall a competent appeal, then you're usually out of luck.

You're fighting the good fight.

This is why I believe felons / prisoners should be able to vote. Not allowing a significant portion of the population to vote leads to them being treated poorly.

It's worse than that. It allows politicians to disenfranchise the people they want to treat poorly.

War on Drugs is the case in point. The entire system is abusive and corrupt, but most of the people with first-hand experience are automatically disenfranchised, so it has persisted for generations against all reason.

Considering what this country was founded on, perhaps people without voting rights should also have zero tax liability in any way.

I'm guessing most of this is graft and kickbacks for city, county, and state officials at various levels. It will be interesting to watch how they react to this legislation trying to get their revenue streams back. They, of course, still have their other avenues, like commissary, mail, "e-messages", etc.

I wonder what the requirements are for a prison telcom? Are their storage requirements so high as to require the fees or is there an opportunity to disrupt a business model for the right reasons for once?

That John Oliver special on this blew my mind. It's just a moneymaking scam.

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