Paul Wright, Editor of Prison Legal News Needs Help!

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 23:44:32 -0700 (PDT)
>From: MichaelP <papadop at peak.org>
>Subject:  Paul Wright, Editor of PLN Needs Help!
>
>Paul Wright, Editor of Prison Legal News Needs Help
>
>Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News and Jailhouse Lawyer Vice
>President of the National Lawyers Guild, is urgently asking for your help.
>
>Paul, who is incarcerated in Washington state, has been placed in
>segregation for the disciplinary infraction of having too many envelopes
>in his cell.  Prison officials are hoping to use this absurd rule
>violation allegation to place Paul in the isolation unit for several
>months and then transfer him to a higher-security facility (Paul is
>currently in a minimum-security prison).
>
>The situation is as follows:  during a recent cell search, guards found 70
>envelopes in Paul's two-person cell.  Prisoners are allowed to possess 40
>envelopes each.  Paul was taken before the disciplinary court, where he
>testified that 34 of the envelopes were his.  His cellmate testified that
>the remaining 36 belonged to him.  Nevertheless, Paul was found guilty of
>possessing too many envelopes and sentenced to 10 days' cell confinement.
>
>Then, on Wednesday, Paul was transferred to segregation and informed that
>he is facing new disciplinary charges for "lying" when he testified at the
>hearing that he had fewer than 40 envelopes.  If he is found guilty of
>lying, he will no longer be eligible for minimum-security status.  If that
>happens, he expects to be held in an isolation cell for at least two
>months before being transferred to a more restrictive prison.
>
>Since Wednesday, Paul has been held mostly incommunicado.  He was able to
>make a couple of telephone calls on Friday, but he still has not been
>allowed to contact his lawyer.
>
>The current charges are the latest in a long series of measures the
>Washington DOC has undertaken against Paul, all of which have been
>directed towards making it more difficult for him to publish Prison Legal
>News. PLN, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, has a long
>history of exposing brutality, mismanagement and other crimes perpetrated
>by DOC officials across the country.
>
>Paul is asking all of us to make two phone calls to try to get him out of
>this situation.  This is the first time in many years that Paul has asked
>for individual help for himself.  He asks that people call Alice Payne,
>the Superintendent of the McNeil Island Correctional Center, at
>(253) 588-5281, and Joseph Lehman, Secretary of the Washington DOC, at
>(360) 753-2500.
>
>Tell them that you want them to 1) release Paul from segregation and drop
>the charges against him; 2) stop punishing Paul for exercising his legal
>rights (publishing PLN, filing lawsuits, and defending himself at a
>disciplinary hearing); and 3) allow him to call his attorney.
>
>For more information, contact Scott Fleming, National Lawyers Guild Prison
>Law Project, at (510) 595-8264, scott at prisonactivist.org.