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Saturday, November 24, 2007

 
POPULAR ELECTION OF JUDGES IN SOUTH CAROLINA?

Our position remains the same as it has been--as long as the public is turning out to vote in local elections at the rate of 10%, it neither needs nor deserves the right to select judges. Moreover, for all its flaws--more on this later--the present system at least requires that a group of educated individuals compile and consider relevant information about the candidates. Furthermore, it requires that they justify their decisions in writing. Conversely, elections can be won or lost based on the last minute dissemination of misinformation by anonymous Bloggers or hired spin doctors.

To illustrate, our point, we invite our readers to compare the postings at CrookedCivilServants.com with http://www.scbar.org/pdf/JQCNov07.pdf.

Friday, November 23, 2007

 
WHAT NEXT FOR THE WRONGLY JAILED REDUX

Following is a post that was originally posted on March 31, 2005. We are reposting it in hopes of providing an update in the next week to ten days. Legislation has been drafted and introduced regarding expungement of Criminal Arrest Records. And there is a movement afoot that may allow for the expungement of "Civil Arrest Records."
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Here is another Post and Courier article about the devastating results that can occur when the Family Court fails to follow the law. In this instance, the father was jailed, the parents both spent thousands of dollars in attorneys fees to litigate a question whose answer was so obvious that the Supreme Court of South Carolina did not deem it necessary to provide a legal analysis, and no one has been able to explain to the father how he can obtain the expungement of his arrest record and the destruction of his arrest documents.

So riddle us this--why shouldn't the trial judge have to draft an Order rectifying the harm that her ill-considered decision caused? Why shouldn't the State have to reimburse the father for the fees and costs expended to clear his name? And why shouldn't the mother's attorney have to reimburse her the legal fees she incurred for rendering what was obviously unsound advice?

From our prospective, and with all respect to Professor Stuckey, the only solution to the wrongful incarceration of parents does not appear to be appointing "more judges" and spending more money. Maybe it would help for the attorneys and the judges to both learn and apply the applicable law. Or maybe Mr. Fassuliotis could have been allowed to stop by a money machine to pay his "fine" before he was hauled off to the hoosegow.


Wednesday, November 21, 2007

 
AN UPDATE ON THE JAIL "INMATE PROCESSING FEE"

We thought we would be finished with this topic by now. However, there seems to be an ever shifting explanation of what, who, where, when, why, and how. Therefore, this situation invites further scrutiny and commentary.

Although Sheriff Nash's website has not been modified to remove the accusations against Dorchester County Council regarding the alleged political motivation for the Audit that lead to the discovery that an embezzlement had occurred and that processing fees were not being returned to those arrestees who were subsequntly acquitted, it was modified on November 17, 2007 to include the following language:

Since the Attorney General has raised a question concerning the legality of charging the booking fee, my command staff and I decided it was best to suspend the practice until we could get further legal clarification. Additionally, the fund that the booking fee was supposed to be deposited into is the same fund which we believe to have been embezzled by my former Jail Captain. We are still in the process of reviewing these records.

According to the most recent edition of The Summervile Journal Scene, Sheriff Nash admitted that there was no record of an inmate receiving a refund in the last two years. Additionally, he is quoted as saying, "If there are some former inmates out there that have been found not guilty, and would like a refund, then they need to ask for one." The Summervile Journal Scene goes on to say, "Nash explains that when an inmate is booked if they have any money it's confiscated* and upon leaving the facility, they're cut a check for anything over $15 they had on their possession. If they had no money when they entered, they don't hunt down the inmate for payment" (emphasis added).

Sheriff Nash's website has also been modified to state "Failure to pay the fee merely restricts the inmate from commissary privileges. If the inmate is later found guilty of all charges, he may apply for a refund. However, very few, if any, inmates have ever applied for a refund" (emphasis added).

We think the foregoing statement contains an error and that the word "guilty" should be "innocent." In any event, regardless of whether the website contains errors, Sheriff Nash's present position(s) directly contradict his previously reported statements in which he claimed that he made efforts to locate those who were acquitted and to return their "booking fee." In other words, this is just another statement that cannot be said to be "the whole truth." More important, because many, if not most, of the inmates in the Dorchester County Jail are there as a result of getting behind on their child support--a civil violation--they would never have had their guilt or innocence adjudicated. And most important, even assuming arguendo that the assessment of the processing fee was lawful, it should be up to the Sheriff to make sure that those whom he concedes are due a refund receive that refund. Sheriff Nash caused the problem by not having adequate monitoring procedures in place and, therefore, ought to correct the problem without further imposition on those who were inconvenienced by his policies.

* We disagre as to whether the seizure was a "confiscation." Rather we think it was both an unlawful fine and a "conversion." Black's Law Dictionary defines "conversion" as "an unauthorized and wrongful exercise of dominion and control over another's personal property, to the exclusion of, or inconsistent with the rights of, the owner," whereas, the Wikipedia entry on "Confiscation" states:
Confiscation, from the Latin confiscatio 'joining to the fiscus, i.e. transfer to the treasury' is a legal seizure without compensation by a government or other public authority. The word is also used, popularly, of spoliation under legal forms, or of any seizure of property without adequate compensation.
Scope and history

As a punishment, it differs from a fine in that it is not primarily meant to match the crime but rather reattributes the criminal's ill-gotten spoils (often as a complement to the actual punishment for the crime itself; still common with various kinds of contraband, such as protected living organisms) to the community or even aims to rob them of their socio-economic status, in the extreme case reducing them to utter poverty, or if he is condemned to death even denies them inheritance to the legal heirs, thus punishing the entire bloodline (in the primitive logic of the blood feud). Meanwhile limited confiscation is often in function of the crime, the rationale being that the criminal must be denied the fruits of their fault, while the crime itself is rather punished in some other, independent way, such as physical punishments or even a concurring fine.

Such rich prizes often proved too much temptation for the authorities to refrain from abuse out of greed, especially when taxation was relatively low-yielding, not permanent (often requiring assent from estates etc. at a political cost) and aroused far more resistance than 'making criminals pay'.

Monday, November 19, 2007

 
SOME RUMINATIONS ON INCARCERATION

Given that the Family Courts do such a poor job of collecting child support through the coercive powers of Civil Contempt, maybe it is time to rethink both the purpose of incarceration and the procedure for determining whether those who are in arrears have "willfully" failed to meet their support obligations. The postings at http://www.writeaprisoner.com/prison-quotes.htm, which have been cut and pasted hereinbelow, provide some thought provoking insights. However, while we cannot say that there is never a reason for, or a benefit of, incarceration, we think that extra precaution should be taken in the Civil Contempt context. If the person who is incarcerated failed behind in his--usually it is a "he"--support obligations, but the act was not willful, then incarceration may only create animosity and delay the payment of what is owed.

After all, a County Jail inmate usually has no way to earn money to apply towards past obligations, much less ongoing obligations. This may be particularly true in Clinch County Georgia and Dorchester County South Carolina where a person can owe more after he has "paid his debt to Society" than he owed before "he paid his debt to Society."
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"There are...recognized rehabilitative benefits to permitting prisoners to...maintain contact with the world outside the prison gates."

--U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken

One final thought. Too much use is made of the prison.

-- Frederick Howard Wines

"More money is put into prison construction than into schools. That, in itself, is the description of a nation bent on suicide. I mean, what's more precious to us than our children? We're going to build a lot more prisons if we don't deal with the schools and their inequalities."

--Jonathan Kozol

"What you do to these men, you do to GOD!"

--Mother Teresa

A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.

-- Fyodor Dostoevsky

"To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today."

--Albert Camus (1913-60)

There was a proposition in a township there to discontinue public schools because they were too expensive. An old farmer spoke up and said if they stopped the schools they would not save anything, because every time a school was closed a jail had to be built. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. He'll never get fat. I believe it is better to support schools than jails.

--Mark Twain

“I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

--(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

--Friedrich Nietzsche

The vilest deeds like poison weeds/Bloom well in prison air; It is only what is good in man/ That wastes and withers there.

--Oscar Wilde

Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?

--Jerry Brown

Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of the government.

--Jean Jacques Rousseau

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

--Bertrand Russell

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.

--Clarence Darrow

In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.

--Eldridge Cleaver

Penology...has become torture and foolishness, a waste of money and a cause of crime...a blotting out of sight and heightening of social anxiety.

--Paul Goodman

Better build schoolrooms for "the boy,"
Than cells and gibbets for "the man."

--Eliza Cook

The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.

--Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky.

--Oscar Wilde

Carelessness about our security is dangerous; carelessness about our freedom is also dangerous.

--Adlai Stevenson

Friendship needs no words - it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.

--Dag Hammarskjold

In taking revenge, a man is not even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.

--Francis Bacon

One of the most important ways you can communicate with an offender is through written correspondence. Encourage your family and friends to write! Even if you are coming to visit soon and have talked on the phone recently, a letter is really appreciated, especially in light of the fact that your contact with an incarcerated loved one is restricted.

--From the State of Missouri Dept. of Corrections Web Site

I hear much of people's calling to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent.

--Daniel Defoe

Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul.

--Mark Twain

Friday, November 16, 2007

 
GEORGIA SHERIFF INDICTED FOR INMATE--RENT SCHEME

The AP reported today that that a Southern Georgia Sheriff was indicted for an inmate-rent scheme. According to the article:
A southern Georgia sheriff faces federal charges accusing him of billing inmates for room and board and interfering with an FBI investigation of local judges.

An indictment unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court accuses Clinch County Sheriff Winston Peterson of perjury, obstruction of justice, using forced labor and extorting former jail inmates.

Peterson, 62, pleaded not guilty to the charges Thursday and was released on $10,000 bond.

Investigators say the sheriff charged jail inmates $18 per day for room and board. County officials agreed in April 2006 to return $27,000 to hundreds of inmates who paid the fees between 2000 and 2004. Peterson also used an inmate to do work at a business run by his wife, investigators say (emphasis added).
Given that there has been no accounting of Dorchester County Sheriff Nash's use of unpaid inmate labor, we reiterate our recommendation that Dorchester County suspend this practice for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, if inmates are going to provide services on behalf of the County, either they, their families, or their victims--as the case may be--should receive some sort of compensation. Dorchester County officials should remember that many of these inmates are in jail, and remain in jail, because they failed to provide for their families. If the County is going to allow them to work, the County should pass along some of the fruits of their labor to the families who are owed support.

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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

 
HOW ARE THOSE "JAIL FUNDS" BEING USED AGAIN?

“I don't know that it directly benefits the inmates, but it certainly benefits law enforcement…Besides, it was the least we could do to be good hosts."

--Dorchester County Sheriff Ray Nash on his use of monies from the “Jail Fund” to feed visiting Romanian Police Chiefs, November 13, 2007

"That's not what it's earmarked for…It does not have anything to do with inmates in Dorchester County."

--Retired State Law Enforcement Division supervisor L.C. Knight, who is challenging Nash for office, November 13, 2007

We do not want to obsess on this issue and will move on to something else in a little while; however, we note that on July 24, 2000, The Post and Courier reported:
Sheriff Nash was paying money from federal funds to a local church. The church in turn was turning the money over to Nash's department chaplain, Shelby Weeks. Since early 1998, Nash has received more than $500,000 from the U.S. Marshal's Service for housing federal prisoners in the county jail. During that time, he has given the church more than $42,000 of that money..... Nash said in a letter to the editor of The Post and Courier on Sunday that an independent board will be established to run the program.
On June 15, 2002, after Dorchester County Council seized control of the Federal Prisoner Housing Fund, Sheriff Nash stated that the "Prisoner Recreation Fund" that was being generated from prisoner telephone toll calls was being used to pay "Chaplains" Weeks and Don Shackelford a total of $14,400 per year (12 x 2 x $600).

On November 1, 2007, Sheriff Nash acknowledged that thousands of dollars were missing from the "Jail Fund," furthermore, The Post and Courier reported:

The money came from inmate haircuts, medical charges, the commissary and a $15 processing fee that prisoners were being charged as they entered the jail...The money was not part of the regular budget. It was supposed to be used for special events for inmates, such as special food on the Fourth of July and a banquet to thank volunteers at the jail, but it also could be used to make up shortfalls in the general budget (emphasis added).

On November 2, 2007, The Post and Courier reported that the jail fund "came from haircuts, the jail commissary, inmate collect phone calls and a controversial $15 processing fee."

On November 9, 2007, The Post and Courier reported:

Nash said no taxpayer money is going into the [Romanian] chiefs' visit, but the jail fund picked up the tab for some of their meals and snacks. The jail fund comes from inmates and includes money from haircuts, medical exams, collect phone calls and a $15 processing fee for arrested suspects that Nash put on hold after County Council questioned whether it was legal (emphasis added).

At the risk of both repeating ourselves and offending some Nash supporters, we note that, by his own admission, Sheriff Nash does not know how much money the Prisoner Recreation Fund generates, how it is being used, how much has been spent, how much has been embezzled, or even whether some of the charges being imposed are lawful. More important, from our standpoint, there is simply no way that an intelligent and rationale person can argue that Sheriff Nash is using these funds for the "benefit" of the prisoners. Therefore, we reiterate that we think an Independent Board should be created to oversee this program. Additionally, we think that this Independent Board should include Dorchester County Jail Inmates; after all, if the fund is for their benefit, they should have some input into the determination of what most benefits them.


Saturday, November 10, 2007

 
NEW CONCERNS RE: JAIL "SLUSH FUND" & INMATE LABOR

Following is an excerpt from an old Post and Courier article that has added resonance given recent developments concerning the Dorchester County jail "slush fund":
All of them were jailed for falling behind in their child-support payments, said Chief Deputy John "Barney" Barnes, the jail administrator. None of them was a violent offender or a flight risk, he said.

So they were working for the county for free. These inmates could save the new school thousands of dollars in labor costs.

On any given day, about 35 inmates from the Dorchester County jail are doing free work for the county, Barnes said.

He estimates inmates provided 75,000 hours of labor last year to public works projects around Dorchester County.

Another worker was less upbeat. He was angry that he was sentenced to a year in jail for owing $1,300 in child support and he's not able to make any money to pay it off. But he said working is better than sitting in jail because the time seems to pass quicker.

Counties around the country are relying on inmate skills to bolster shrinking budgets, said Capt. Cliff McElvogue, superintendent at the Hill-Finklea Detention Center in Berkeley County.

"Some of these counties will tell you they could not make it without inmate workers," he said. "There's no doubt about it. The economy is tight.

To me, this is the best detail the jail gives," Tony Washington, who is serving a year for not paying child support, said as he sorted cardboard boxes at the recycling center. "You're not out mowing lawns in the sun, and I get to deal with people." But he wishes he could be making some money.

"I've got seven kids," Washington said. "I'm in here for not paying for one of them, and now I can't take care of any of them."
The article, which can be accessed by clicking here raises the following questions:
  1. Who and which entities are benefiting from this free labor?
  2. How could Dorchester County survive without benefit of this free labor (75,000 hours per year)?
  3. Is the practice legal?
  4. What safeguards have been instituted to insure that the labor is truly voluntary?
  5. Why did County Counsel allow this questionable practice to continue unabated for so long?

This article raises further concerns about the use of the jail slush fund. As written in the Post and Courier:

Nash said no taxpayer money is going into the [Romanian] chiefs' visit, but the jail fund picked up the tab for some of their meals and snacks. The jail fund comes from inmates and includes money from haircuts, medical exams, collect phone calls and a $15 processing fee for arrested suspects that Nash put on hold after County Council questioned whether it was legal (emphasis added).

Just a few years ago Sheriff Nash promised to create an independent board to oversee the "Prisoner Recreation Fund." At that time he indicated that he paid the jail chaplains from the Prisoner Recreation Fund, which comes from a commission paid by the company that provides telephone service for the prisoners. However, there is no indication that the independent board either exists or was ever created. Moreover, there is no indication that there is any independent oversight over how Sheriff Nash assigns the "voluntary inmate labor."

We think that it is safe to say that Sheriff Nash has no idea either where Dorchester County inmates are being assigned or how monies from the Prisoner Recreation Fund are being spent. Certainly, it is inappropriate to use prisoner work assignments as a way of currying political favor. And the "Prisoner Recreation Fund" should not be used to pay for anything that does not directly benefit the prisoners. More important, given that the County may have to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars to people who were deprived of their property without Due Process of Law, Sheriff Nash should cease distributing these funds at least until a determination is made of how much has been embezzled and whether it has to be repaid. Additionally, he should immediately create that independent board to oversee any future dispersal of funds.

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Friday, November 02, 2007

 
JAIL FUNDS MIGHT HAVE BEEN STOLEN--BUT SO WHAT?

The Post and Courier reported that Jail funds might have been stolen. And the Summerville Journal Scene reported Audit uncovers embezzlement in sheriff's office. However we think that both of these articles miss the point. We believe that the following post to the comments section of The Post and Courier is more to the point (highlights ours):

Posted by abitskeptical on November 1, 2007 at 7:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)

An add on to allwoman post-She is correct as to where most of the prisoners' $ comes from--their families &/or friends. Sometimes they earn a bit from jobs, but it takes a while for most to earn enough to buy anything.

If they are to keep in touch with their kids, they have to have $ in an account in order to make phone calls because they cannot receive calls. The system in Dorchester costs the prisoner(i.e. family) over $8 for a 15 min. call even if it is in state.

If they are going to write their children they have to pay 50 cents for a pre-stamped envelope. They are allowed to buy snacks, including things like granola or packs of tuna, also vitamins & deodorant. Since they are allowed only 1 blanket & the prisons are kept colder than most people keep their homes(speaking of tax money) the cold natured ones will buy long sleeved undershirts

It might appear that prisoners are being given some undeserved grand luxury by being allowed to buy anything. However, the prices are inflated, the quality is poor & this is not about doing anything for the prisoners. This is about making money for someone else. The idea of canteens where prisoners could buy a few select things was not started to benefit the prisoner.

Also, remember not all 'prisoners' have been convicted of anything. Some of these people have only been charged & just cannot afford bail & so they sit there until a hearing or trial.
The bottom line is that the Sheriff should never have charged many of these fees in the first place. Granted, the unnamed bank that allowed an employee of the Dorchester County Sheriff's office to open and operate a dummy account is probably more to blame than the Sheriff for the embezzlement itself. However, had the Sheriff not been both accessing questionable fees and utilizing them for questionable purposes, he would not be in his present mess.

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