CCR Annual Report 2005 - Center for Constitutional Rights

CRIMINALJUSTICE
16
CCR v the Prison-Industrial Complex
CCR has continued to fight unjust and inhumane detention on many fronts this year,
and not just overseas. With our Guantánamo Justice Project, our advocacy on behalf of
prisoners' families and our work in America's prisons, CCR has consistently stood up for
those few others would defend.
In Ohio’s supermax prison, people are kept alone in their cells 23 hours a day, a cruel
and inhumane practice known to cause or exacerbate mental health issues. Prisoners
are often placed in these prisons without any process or opportunity to challenge their
transfer. CCR took the fight over supermax confinement all the way to the U.S. Supreme
Court this year, resulting in an important victory that will affect prisoners across the
country: the Court ruled that no one should be placed in or transferred to such
extremely restrictive confinement without being told the reason for the transfer and
being given the opportunity to challenge that decision. CCR will continue to demand
more humane conditions and the right to challenge detention for those our society has
forgotten.
David Wong was wrongly convicted of a jailhouse murder in 1987. Even though there was
no evidence connecting him to the killing, David faced spending the rest of his life in
prison. For years, CCR argued that David was innocent, the scapegoat of a botched
investigation. This year, the State of New York finally agreed. After more than 20 years in
prison, David Wong was released, and the murder charge was expunged from his record.
For years, CCR and the Nation Lawyers Guild (NLG) have received letters from prisoners
who are trying to file legal papers on their own. To help prisoners develop their
arguments, CCR and the NLG created the Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook (JLH). We sent
out over 10,000 free copies of the handbook to hundreds of prisons in the last year.
Recently, in response to the growing population of women in U.S. prisons, we added a
special appendix that deals specifically with women’s issues.
CCR continues to be at the forefront of the work being done to bridge the gap between
those incarcerated and those fighting for a more equitable system.