Virginia Prison Justice Network
Newsletter
7/2/18
Roanoke Speak Out for Prison Justice
On Saturday, June 23 over 60 people attend-
ed the Roanoke Speak Out for Justice event,
which was sponsored by VAPJN (Virginia
Prison Justice Network) and endorsed by
the Coalition for Justice (CFJ),  Interfaith
Action for Human Rights, RIHD, Inc.,
RISE for Youth, Roanoke Peoples’ Power
Network, Roanoke Jail Solidarity, Virginia
Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equali-
ty,  VAPAC (Virginia Prison Accountabil-
ity Committee)  VAPAC (Virginia Prison
Accountability Committee), and VAPOC
(Virginia Prisoner of Conscience).  Chicago Books to Women in Prison
Several prisoners sent in statements to be
read and Chanell Burnette, writing from
Fluvanna Correctional Center, summed it
up by writing, “ Will there ever come a time
when the administration centralizes on the
enigmas of real significance? When will the
obvious be remedied? It’s time; is it not?”  she also called for more compassion when
Family members of prisoners and the
formerly incarcerated shared their stories,
which ranged from the lack of resources
and care for prisoners with addictions, the
broken grievance system, and the need for
FTP Convergence in Pittsburgh
Two Coalition for Justice members
attended the Fight Toxic Prisons Con-
vergence in Pittsburgh, PA. This is our
report back from the  “Eighth Amendment
& the Environment:   Unconstitutional
Conditions in Toxic Prisons” workshop.
The presenters were:
• Candice Bernd,  candice@truthout.org,
aTruthout journalist
• Dustin McDaniels, co-founder and ex-
ecutive director of the Abolitionist Law
Center (ALC)
• Pre-recorded interview with prisoner
Keith Washington, co-founder and chief
spokesperson for the End Prison Slavery
in Texas Movement, a proud member
of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing
Committee, an activist in the Fight
Toxic Prisons campaign and deputy
chairman of the New Afrikan Black P@
nther Party Prison Chapter. Send this
brother some love and light by writing to:
more educational programs for prisoners.  for Women in Prison
Among the speakers were Shaheed Omar
(Virginia Cares) who talked about the
struggles or Kevin “Rasheed” Johnson, the
Minister for Defense of the New Afrikan
B.P.P - Prison Chapter, an author, orga-
nizer, and artist who was moved into Red
Onion  and put into solit@ry in June 2018.  ing women behind bars the opportunity
Rebecca Keel from RISE for Youth spoke
on the ongoing work to close youth prisons
in Virginia and Natasha Harper ended the
program with the heart-breaking story of
her step-son, Clifton Antonio Harper, and
his suicide in Roanoke County Jail in 2015. 
She called for better treatment programs.
the  implementation of new screening
practices to identify inmates with mental
health needs, and improved communication
with family members and medical staff and
dealing with inmates with disabilities. 
In-custody deaths should never happen
and after the program, several attendees
marched to the Roanoke County Jail to
bring these points home.
Keith “Malik” Washington, 1487958,
Eastham Unit, 2665 Prison Rd 1, Lovela-
dy TX 75851.
Candice skyped in describing the ground-
breaking legal decision made by a federal
judge in Houston in July 2017 when he
ordered a geriatric prison in Texas be
air conditioned in order to help inmates
overcome extreme heat and rising summer
temperatures.  In his ruling he referenced
climate change. U.S. District Judge Keith
Ellison deemed it cruel and unusual that
state corrections were aware of dangerous
and lethal heat risks — at least 23 men in
Texas prisons had died from the heat in the
last 20 years — yet had failed to impose
safeguards.  Ellison slammed the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice for contin-
uously violating the Eighth Amendment by
subjecting inmates at the Wallace Pack Unit
south of Navasota to heat indexes that reg-
(continued on page 2)
Issue #10
A Book Resource
Chicago Books to Women in Prison is
a volunteer collective that distributes
paperback books free of charge to
people incarcerated in women’s prisons
nationwide. We are dedicated to offer-
for self-empowerment, education, and
entertainment that reading provides.
Write to them!
c/o Ravenswood Fellowship United
Methodist Church
4511 N. Hermitage Avenue
Chicago, IL 6064
Hampton  Roads:  
Speak Out for Prison Justice
Hosted by The House of Dreams
Outreach & Re-Entry, LLC
Saturday, July 7, starts at 1:00 pm
Miracle Temple Baptist Church
617 32nd Street, Newport News,
Virginia 23606
Spread the word and be heard! 
6th Annual Mobile Justice Tour,
Norfolk VA
Join RIHD (Resource, Information,
Help for the Disadvantaged & Disen-
franchised) for the 6th Mobile Justice
Tour hosted by Gethsemane Commu-
nity Fellowship to hear from leaders,
advocates and community residents
how we TOGETHER can increase
public safety while working to end mass
incarceration by improving the effective-
ness and fairness of Virginia’s criminal
justice system laws
1317 East Brambleton Avenue
Norfolk, VA 23504 
SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2018
9:30AM to 11:00AM (9AM refresh-
ment)
Additional information: (804) 426-4426.
Email: BrendajRIHD@gmail.com

(“FTP” continued from page 1)
ularly exceed 100 degrees in summer. The
8th Amendment says that, “Excessive bail
shall not be required, nor excessive fines
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punish-
ments inflicted.”   It’s a landmark case
that could have implications for other
Texas prisons — and prisons around the
country — without air-conditioning in
cell blocks.
Candice described how the “get tough on
crime” movement meant that scores of
prisons were built across the country as
quickly and as cheaply as possible. They
were also built without air conditioning
or proper heating and ventilation. How
is this case related to climate change? We
know that rising temperatures are con-
nected to climate change.  In 2014, sev-
eral inmates at the prison sued the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice over the
lack of air conditioning, citing nearly two
Black Virginia History, the Norfolk 17
After the Brown vs. Board of Education
Supreme Court decision to integrate public
schools in 1954, Virginia implemented
years of political discourse, legal strife, and
procedural delay in order to avoid desegre-
gation. In 1958, Governor Almond decided
to implement this plan and close Norfolk’s
all-Whites schools after Federal District
Judge Walter Hoffman’s ordered the im-
mediate integration of Norfolk’s all-White
schools. Seventeen Black students, known
as the Norfolk Seventeen, were accepted for
enrollment.
Before the 1958-59 school year began, Gov-
ernor Almond shut down Norfolk’s six all-
White schools. The school closure displaced
approximately 9,900 White students and the
seventeen Black students who were expected
to integrate the all-White public schools.
dozen prisoners who died from heat stroke
in the last two decades with temperatures
at the unit routinely exceeding 100 degrees.
Of Texas’ more than 100 state prisons and
jails, nearly 75 percent are uncooled in
inmate housing areas.  For years, the state
fought back against the suit, claiming it
took adequate measures to deal with the
sweltering Texas summers, like providing
ice water and fans.
But their arguments didn’t sway Ellison,
who issued a sharp ruling, saying the de-
partment was deliberately indifferent to the
harm it was causing inmates and he ordered
the state to place medically vulnerable
inmates in air conditioned units. There had
been 23 reported deaths by hyperthermia or
heat stroke in Texas prisons during periods
of heat waves that were acknowledged by
prison authorities. In order to report out as
such, the body temperature has to be north
of 105 degrees.  Prison authorities cited 23
During the school closure, some students
transferred to private schools while most of
the White students went without schooling.
Since the private schools could not accom-
modate the number of displaced White
students, the Defender’s of State Sovereignty
and Individual Liberties (DSSIL), who saw
integration as a plot to mongrelize public
education, funded a Tidewater Education
Foundation (TEF) that created private class-
es for 270 of the unschooled students.
In addition, some of Norfolk’s teachers
tried to fill the educational void in Norfolk
during the school closure by forming tutorial
groups in the White churches or wherever
space was found, but they eventually became
full to capacity. As the months progressed,
White parents began to speak out publicly
against the school closings. For instance, a
Page 2
deaths using this criteria but the number is
actually higher because unless you get to
a body quickly, the temperature will have
changed so not all heat related deaths are
reported as heat related. Drastic changes
in temperature (heat waves) make the it
difficult for people to acclimate and other
deaths, especially for the very young or the
elderly, which can be attributed to heat as
a contributing factor, were not counted as
heat related deaths.  For example, heart
attack, stroke etc.
This case was was won by using the
Eighth Amendment and arguing that that
heat-sensitive inmates at a geriatric prison
unit were treated in a cruel and unusual
manner because they had health risks that
put them in danger due to excessively high
temperatures in the unit.  When prisoners
complained of high heat, they were told
to drink more water. Unfortunately, the
(continued on page 3)
group of White mothers known as the Nor-
folk League of Women Voters sent a letter
to Governor Almond asking him to reopen
the schools.
Almond did not close the all-Black schools,
such as Booker T. Washington High School
because he hoped that the Black students
would simply return to their all-Black
school hence, avoiding integration. Instead
of returning to Booker T. Washington the
“Norfolk 17” were tutored at First Baptist
Church on Bute Street. It was not until the
rulings of the James and Harrison cases that
the schools had a chance to reopen. The
James case ruled that public schools were to
be made available to all children in the state,
regardless of race. Similarly, the Harrison
case ruled that the school closing to prevent
integration violated Virginia’s Constitution-
al requirement that the state maintain an
efficient school system. Fittingly, on the an-
niversary of Robert E. Lee’s birth, January
19, 1959, the Virginia State Supreme Court
and the Federal District Court declared that
the school closings in Norfolk were uncon-
stitutional. Two weeks later, on February 2,
1959, the Norfolk 17 became the first African
American students to attend the previously
all-white schools in the largest school district
in the state of Virginia. Shortly after the
James and Harrison decisions were handed
down, the Norfolk seventeen integrated the
six all-White schools in Norfolk on February
2, 1959, ending the era of massive resistance.

(“FTP” continued from page 2)
water itself was toxic. It is important to
understand that in order to win an Eighth
amendment lawsuit, there have to be two
conditions: first, you need an entry that is
serious and presents as an identifiable hu-
man need, health, safety, food, warmth etc.
The issue of high temperatures and health
risks are well documented and objective and
second, you need a subjective element - proof
that prison officials are deliberately indif-
ferent when they know that prisoners face
a substantial risk of serious harm and disre-
gard that risk by failing to take reasonable
measures to abate it. This is demonstrated
in Farmer vs Brennan:  511 U.S. 825 (1994),
a case in which the Supreme Court of the
United States ruled that a prison official’s
“deliberate indifference” to a substantial
risk of serious harm to an inmate violates
the cruel and unusual punishment clause of
the Eighth Amendment.
It had previously been shown that the water
they drank had high levels of arsenic -- four
times the safe level of arsenic. In June 2016,
Judge Ellison had ordered the Texas prison
system to provide safe drinking water to in-
mates at the Pack Unit in Navasota, saying
the unit’s arsenic-laden well water “violates
contemporary standards of decency.” The
Wallace Pack Unit, a low security geriatric
unit in a facility in Grimes County that
holds elderly and sick inmates, was ordered
to take 15 days to replace its water supply.  well being.  The Eighth Amendment of the
The emergency motion to replace the drink-
ing water was filed by a group of inmates
suing the state on the grounds that the lack
of air conditioning during the hot summer
months is a form of “cruel and unusual
punishment.” The Texas DOC appealed
the ruling. This was vital to the heat lawsuit
as it fulfils the second requirement: the
prison’s deliberate indifference to a serious
health risk.
The geriatric unit was ordered to have air
conditioning installed. It was determined
that it would take two years to do this so
in the meantime large, industrial fans are
being used to cool the unit.  Keith Washing-
ton, an inmate in the unit, had wanted (as
did all the litigants) that this ruling include
all prisoners, not just those in the geriatric
unit. However, they couldn’t get this done
as they could not objectively prove the
health risks to those who were not part of a
vulnerable population -- the heat sensitive.
Justin McDaniels from the Abolitionist Law
Center presented on the issue of prisoner
litigation.   further shows that these individuals’ dis-
The Prisoner Litigation Reform Act (PLRA)
can be used in prisoner litigation but only
once they have exhausted all administrative
remedies -- the administrative grievance
process including all levels of appeal before
they can sue in federal court.  Proper ex-
haustion requires complying with all dead-
lines and other critical procedural rules. See
Woodford v Ngo 548 US 81 (2006):  where
Mike Ngo filed a grievance with the Cali-
fornia prison system, but it was dismissed
because he had waited too long to file it. He
then brought suit in Federal District Court.
California objected, arguing that he had not
exhausted his administrative remedies, and
that the fact that those remedies were no
longer available to him because of his delay
in filing was immaterial. The district court
agreed, but the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals reversed, finding that all of Ngo’s
administrative remedies were “exhausted”
because they were no longer available to
him. Using the PLRA only requires exhaus-
tion of such administrative remedies as they
are available. See also Brown vs Croak,
another lawsuit that deals with exhaustion
issues.
Regarding the Eighth Amendment.  How
might this impact other kinds of claims?  is 15 parts per billion and if the state and
Solitary confinement claims are starting to
be recognized by the court as “cruel and
unusual” punishment with litigants who are
citing human contact as a human need for
Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual
punishment and the Supreme Court has held
that this standard can be applied to prison
conditions, including solitary confinement.
Unfortunately, with just one exception, no
court has found that solitary confinement
violates the Eighth Amendment.
CFJ note:  While most challenges to solitary
confinement have been brought under
the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel
and unusual punishment, the Americans
with    Disabilities Act (ADA) offers an
additional and unique statutory path for
mentally ill inmates and those with physical
disabilities.  In January 2017, the American
Civil Liberties Union released an extensive
report on people with physical disabilities
in solitary confinement, which provides
both statistical and anecdotal evidence that
people with physical disabilities, who are
dramatically overrepresented in prisons,
are subject to abysmal and flagrantly illegal
treatment while incarcerated and especially
while in solitary confinement. The report
abilities are not only not accommodated in
Page 3
solitary confinement, but are often the sole
justification for isolation.  While earlier
reports and developments have brought
attention to the widespread use of solitary
confinement on people with psychological
disabilities, Caged In, written by ACLU
National Prison Project Fellow Jamelia
Morgan, is the first to comprehensively
document the use and impact of solitary on
people with physical disabilities, including
mobility challenges, missing limbs, and
sensory disabilities such as blindness and
deafness.
Justin McDaniels also spoke on water
issues in prisons  The Safe Drinking Water
Act (SDWA) is the federal law that protects
public drinking water supplies throughout
the nation. Under the SDWA, the EPA
sets standards for drinking water quality
and with its partners implements various
technical and financial programs to ensure
drinking water safety. These are the health
based standards.  However, fighting for safe
drinking water in prison at the legal action-
able level is different as there is a looser
standard for safe drinking water at the legal
actionable level than that of the EPA. For
example, the EPA actionable level for lead
the EPA are not doing what they should do
to enforce lead laws, citizens can act.  There
are lots of regulated contaminants under
the Safe Drinking Water act and more than
1,000 formal actions have been taken citing
the SDW, most famously, the Flint water
crisis. The Flint case has provided a path for
prisoners in their fight for safe drinking wa-
ter.  The Abolitionist Law Center is a public
interest law firm inspired by the struggle
of political and politicized prisoners, and
organized for the purpose of abolishing
class and race based mass incarceration in
the United States.  To accomplish this goal,
the Abolitionist Law Center engages in
litigation on behalf of people whose human
rights have been violated in prison, produces
educational programs to inform the general
public about mass incarceration.
Contact:
Abolitionist Law Center:
P.O. Box 8654
Pittsburgh, PA 1522
Published by the Coalition for Justice for
the Virginia Prison Justice Network:  
justicebburg@gmail.com