Kudos to the Alabama Legislature which passed a bill making it easier for ex-felons to restore their voting rights. The bill also accelerates parole by granting some inmates early release. Lawyer Ed Still is on top of the legislation over at VoteLaw. Today he reports the Governor has signed the legislation--it is now law.

For background on why felony disenfranchisement is unfair, start here.

The Christian Science Monitor reports today on the move to provide ex-felons with the right to vote. 37 states now allow ex-felons to vote. That leaves 13 more we need to work on. The Sentencing Project i s leading the charge:

A recent study by The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit criminal-justice advocacy organization, found that as a result of the changes since 1996, 471,000 ex-cons have had voting rights restored. But the study also estimates that 3.9 million Americans - 1 in 50 adults - can't vote. And because of the racial imbalance in the criminal justice system, a large percentage of them are minority. Indeed, 1.4 million black men are disenfranchised. That's 13 percent of the African-American male population, a figure seven times the national average.

"The irony is that 50 years after Brown v. the Board of Education ... we actually see increasing numbers of people of color losing their voting rights," says Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project.

....The American public has a fairly clear stance. In a poll commissioned .... last year, 80 percent favored giving all ex-cons the right to vote. But only 31 percent favored extending voting rights to those currently serving their time.

As we point out here, quoting from an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, restoring the vote to ex-felons should be a priority of the Democratic party:

Joel Steinberg. Hedda Nessbaum. Six year old Lisa Steinberg. Do you remember them? If not, go here.

Steinberg, a prominent New York attorney, is soon to be paroled after serving 17 years in prison for killing Lisa. And, according to his attorney, he has a job waiting upon his release. He will be a television producer for "New York Confidential." It's a local cable interview show. What are Steinberg's credentials for the job?

"He has contacts in prison," [his lawyer] said, explaining that Steinberg, a disbarred lawyer, knows some of the state's most notorious criminals. "He knows how to go into a prison and get a story."

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Former '60s-era activist Angela Davis, now a California professor, spoke to a crowd of 1,000 Friday at a Florida university. Another 1,000 were turned away due to space limitations. She called for an end to the American prison system, saying it is a vestige of slavery. Davis says reform isn't enough, abolition of the system is the only answer.

''Slavery has not yet been completely abolished,'' she said. Prisons, she said, are ``one of the institutions in whose structure racism has learned to hide.'' Davis said that capital punishment and imprisonment were practices of the slave era that endured even after slavery itself was abolished.

''Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America,'' she said. ``Slavery became a haven for the death penalty.'' She pointed out that in Virginia, before the end of slavery, there was only one crime for which a white person could be executed. But there were 66 crimes for which a slave could be executed.

What should take the place of the prison system? Davis says the answer is education.

Davis said the path into prisons begins for many black and Latino youths in the violence that still permeates many inner-city schools, and she said that's where reform needs to begin. ''Education can be seen as the most compelling alternative to imprisonment. Unless current structures of violence are eliminated from poor schools, these schools will remain the major conduits to youth prison and then to adult prison,'' she said.

Davis is a tenured professor and chair of the Women's Studies Program at the University of California at Santa Cruz. For those of you too young to remember her history, read on:

How could any jail allow this to happen?

Two teenage daughters of James Carpenter, a mentally ill inmate who died from a flesh-eating bacteria in the Mobile County jail three years ago, will receive about $350,000 each in a partial settlement of a lawsuit over their father's death....The total payout is $1.45 million -- the maximum under the insurance policies that cover the county,.

Carpenter's death revealed serious problems at the jail. Though jail officials have said they've improved things, the fallout is ongoing. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating jail conditions and has named several topics that were at issue during Carpenter's incarceration.

A lot of lawyers worked hard for this settlement, including one of our pals from Mobile, Robert F. "Cowboy Bob" Clark.

For those of you who can stomach the gory details of Mr. Carpenter's 15 day incarceration, taken from court pleadings and Sheriff's Department reports, read on:

The Houston Chronicle reports that American Lori Berenson, serving a 20 year terrorism sentence in a Peruvian jail is in love--with a Peruvian law student and they want to marry.

While Peruvian inmates are generally allowed to marry while in jail, it's uncertain if Ms. Berenson will be accorded that privilege. Let's hope so.

Lawsuits over alleged police brutality have been filed by 12 inmates at the Grant County Detention Center in Williamstown, KY and by the jail's former nurse who says she refused to cover up....the charges are despicable. For now, just don't get busted for a minor crime in Kentucky.

Here are some of the allegations, as described in lawsuits and interviews with former inmates and their attorneys:

• One guard is fond of spiking inmates' toothbrushes and deodorant with mace, Christopher Hughes told his lawyer, Hill. Hughes said the same jailer first broke his hand by kicking the metal food-slot flap down over his fingers, then feigned concern, asked to see the inmate's injured hand -- and twisted it hard. Hughes has not sued; Hill said the assault occurred more than a year ago, too distant to file suit.

• Five suits describe jailers ganging up on inmates to administer vicious beatings, one of them on Cox, who owns billboard and crane companies in Falmouth and who was arrested for drunken driving on March 13. After he dropped his belt and shoes on the floor rather than in a bag, Cox and a witness, inmate Kenneth Townsend, said jailers rushed him and administered a beating.

An ex-boot camp officer who abused a probationer by plunging his head into a toilet has been convicted of official oppression.

His punishment: two years' probation, a $1,000 fine and 10 weekends (160 hours) scrubbing toilets at the boot camp.

The prosecutor described the guard as "a sadist."

He said [the guard] Vera picked up a 5-foot, 100-pound probationer, "slammed him into a wall, kicked him, stuck his head in the toilet and flushed it."

The jury deadlocked 11 to 1 for conviction on charges he did the same thing to a second probationer. A third probationer has now come forward with the same accusation.

Just desserts.

Two women have filed suit against the San Francisco Police Department alleging they were arrested, jailed, strip searched and left naked for hours on the floor of a jail cell.

One of the women was arrested for public intoxication. The other was a peace activist protesting the war.

In California, the use of "sobering" cells is tightly controlled. They are to be used for inmates who "are a threat to their own safety or the safety of others" who should be removed when they are able to continue the booking process, according to Board of Corrections regulations.

Both women's full stories are detailed in the article.

Neither woman was arraigned. No criminal charges were filed against Flick; two felony vandalism charges later were dropped against Bull.

Flick sued San Francisco, its police and its Sheriff's Department in federal court Wednesday. Bull sued the city and the Sheriff's Department in April, asking the federal court to certify her suit as a class action.

The lawyer for the women said:

The barbaric treatment to which they were exposed is reminiscent of 16th century torture chambers," said Mark Merin, a Sacramento attorney representing the women. "It was perverse. . . . We have a right to expect a lot more from our law enforcement than what these women were subjected to."

According to the information provided in the article, the women should neither have been strip searched nor forced to undress:

While we are still in New York City, we thought we'd pass along this article we saw in the New York Post: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that three New York jails have been serving vermin along with food to its 6,000 prisoners:

Three of the biggest jails on Rikers Island served up vermin-contaminated food to inmates, the New York federal appeals court ruled yesterday.
The three-judge panel found food sanitation to be "constitutionally inadequate" at the Anna M. Kross Center, the George Motchan Detention Center and the Adolescent Reception and Detention Center.

The record is replete with evidence of high levels of vermin activity in the food-storage and service areas," the judges said. Nearly 6,000 prisoners are housed at the three pretrial facilities.

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Update: Further information that Druce killed Geoghan at the behest of another inmate, expecting to receive a benefit.

Bump and Update: From the latest Reuters article:

James Pingeon, a lawyer with Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, said a prisoner told him he had tried to warn officers about Druce's plans, but to no avail.

"The inmate told me he heard Druce had planned to stage a hostage taking but that guards dismissed his information," Pingeon said. "We were also told by this inmate that another inmate had paid Druce to attack Geoghan."

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Massachussetts Governor Mitt Romney has ordered a review of prison policies following the murder of former Priest John Geoghan. This is chilling:

Jim Pingeon, director of litigation for the prisoners' rights group Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, also told the Times another prisoner had tried to warn jailers about the impending attack, but they took no action.

We won't be surprised if it turns out Geoghan was warned as well, and asked for increased protection - and was either ignored or denied it. We hope the prison keeps a record of inmate 'kites' and requests.

Update: Check out Prison Can Be a Living Hell for Pedophiles

The Washington Post reports how former Priest John Geoghan died:

John J. Geoghan, the former priest and convicted child molester killed in a Massachusetts prison Saturday, was followed into his cell just after lunch by a fellow inmate who bound and gagged him before strangling him with a bed sheet, according to a union representative for prison guards.

The attacker, whom authorities identified as Joseph L. Druce, jammed the electronically operated cell door to prevent guards from opening it. He tied Geoghan's hands behind his back with a sheet and gagged him. He then repeatedly jumped from the bed in the cell onto Geoghan's motionless body and beat the defrocked priest with his fists.

Only one correction officer was on duty in the protective custody unit at the time, according to an account of the attack provided by Robert Brouillette, an executive of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union, who interviewed correction officers for seven hours Saturday.