Alabama Sheriff In Court For Starving Inmates, Paying Critic's Grandson To Install Keylogger On Her Computer
from the just-make-it-out-to-'cash'-and-save-everyone-the-hassle dept
A number of statutes and practices have created perverse incentives for law enforcement, but none are nearly so blatant as this Alabama state law governing the feeding of inmates. The law, passed over 100 years ago, says law enforcement personnel -- mainly sheriffs -- can keep whatever's left over from state and federal inmate food stipends. This doesn't mean the leftover money is routed to a general fund or used to defray law enforcement/jail-related expenses. No, this means the money flows from taxpayers, (mostly) bypasses prisoners, and ends up in sheriffs' personal checking accounts. (via Radley Balko)
This legalized skimming has resulted in the obvious: underfed inmates and sheriffs with overfed bank accounts. The law first received national attention in 2008, when Morgan County sheriff Greg Bartlett found himself in federal court, defending himself against a lawsuit brought by his prisoners. Inmates were dropping weight and going hungry while Bartlett increased his personal income by $212,000 over three years, taking home a great deal of the $1.75 per prisoner per day state funds. (Federal prisoners housed in state jails are allowed $3 per day, which can also be rerouted to sheriffs' checking accounts.)
This resulted in Bartlett spending one night in his own jail. Even then, Sheriff Bartlett was violating an earlier consent decree with the federal government, which ordered his office to use *all* food funds for feeding inmates. The agreement Bartlett reached with the court (after a night in jail) promised his office would do the same thing: spend all the funds on food, rather than diverting them for personal use.
Even with two consent decrees in place and a previous sheriff being hauled into court for personally profiting from inmates' hunger, another Morgan County sheriff (Ana Franklin) has repeated her predecessor's misdeeds.
At that hearing, the sheriff's attorneys are expected to argue that a years-old consent decree in a lawsuit against the county does not apply to Franklin and she shouldn't be held in contempt. The decree says the Morgan County Sheriff must spend all food funds on inmate meals. The decree was issued in 2009 after Franklin's predecessor was jailed for contempt. Former Sheriff Greg Bartlett was dubbed "Sheriff Corndog" because he profited more than $200,000 while inmates ate corndogs twice a day for weeks. The consent decree stemmed from a 2001 lawsuit against the county and then-Sheriff Steve Crabbe by inmates decrying conditions inside the jail.
A court hearing was scheduled last month when the Center filed a motion saying Franklin should show cause for why she shouldn't be held in contempt of the decree. The center argued that Franklin should have been held in contempt after removing $160,000 from the inmate food account. The sheriff loaned $150,000 of the money to a now-bankrupt, corrupt used car dealership, Priceville Partners, LLC, that was co-owned by Greg Steenson, a convicted felon.
Franklin is trying to convince the court she should be allowed to continue starving inmates and financing criminal business ventures. While Sheriff Franklin was helping prop up localbusiness corruption, inmates were dealing with this reality:
The [Southern Center for Human Rights] is arguing Franklin should not be allowed to keep any of the food funds and has included in court documents statements from inmates who describe inadequate food portions and unappetizing or hazardous servings. Inmates reported finding rocks, a nail and mold in food served at the jail.
"Many grievances note that entire cell blocks were fed reduced or watered-down portions -- a tiny amount of soup, a spoonful of grits, five or six green beans or carrot slices as a vegetable serving, a sandwich with half of a slice of cheese on it, and the like -- because the kitchen lacked enough food to serve everyone the portions listed on the menu," according to court records filed by the Center.
Starving prisoners to fund personal business ventures isn't the only thing Sheriff Franklin's accused of doing, though. A longtime critic of Franklin -- blogger/business owner Glenda Lockhart -- has also filed a lawsuit against the sheriff, alleging a number of constitutional violations.
The lawsuit accuses Franklin of illegally obtaining information to convince a judge to issue a search warrant for Lockhart's home and business. Franklin has said her office seized computers and various other devices during an investigation into fired jail warden Leon Bradley, who has been accused of leaking documents to Lockhart for publication on the blog.
Lockhart's blog was where Sheriff Franklin's payments to the corrupt car dealership first appeared. In apparent retaliation, the sheriff allegedly engaged in some incredibly underhanded -- and illegal -- tactics in her attempt to obtain the blogger's personal communications.
Lockhart claims Franklin illegally gathered information for a search warrant by paying an informant to break-in, hack and steal data from her home and business offices. Lockhart owns Straightline Drywall and Acoustical, LLC in Falkville.
The informant, Lockhart's grandson Daniel, said in a sworn statement that he was paid to install keylogger software on his grandmother's computer. The software, he said, was provided by the sheriff's office, according to a transcript from a November 2016 deposition.
Daniel Lockhart's statement also said the sheriff told him she was only interested in going after the former warden who was leaking documents and that Daniel's grandmother wouldn't be targeted. His statement also points out he was paid directly by the sheriff and one of her deputies a total of $500 to perform this "investigative" work for them.
There appears to be corruption all over the place in Morgan County, Alabama. But it all starts with a bad law state lawmakers are in no hurry to take off the books. Despite multiple federal lawsuits stemming from sheriffs' starve-and-skim tactics, the incredibly perverse incentive remains intact. There are probably plenty of taxpayers who don't like the idea of their money being used to food and house convicted criminals, but I doubt any of those taxpayers are happier knowing they're padding sheriffs' bank accounts and investing in shady businesses.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: alabama, ana franklin, food, glenda lockhart, prisoners, sheriffs
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
"We can't punish them, that would be unfair!"
The court needs to hand out some actual punishments if they want this sort of corruption to stop. Enough with the 'No really, you need to feed the inmates', force the individual sheriffs to pay back every single penny, and/or hit them with hefty jail time of their own.
Getting rid of the insanely stupid law would be a good second step, but the first really needs to be punishment for those abusing it for their own gain.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "We can't punish them, that would be unfair!"
It is completely unacceptable for a sheriff to investigate a leak that incriminates herself/himself. At the very least that act on its own is beyond a doubt morally corrupt. Those things are why IA and FBI exists - to avoid these conflicts of interest!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Blue pies
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
More of the bubble thinking of "Good People™" that it will never happen to them, until it does.
More disturbing is even after they citizens end up paying out lots of money in settlements, they won't demand any actual change.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Prisons are only there to detain and make sure prisoners do not have there freedom of movement and do not have any rights to punish prisoners in any other way..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Oh and Andy, a lot of prisons in the US are not there to detain or rehabilitate someone, they are there to warehouse and keep them away from "normal" citizens because they are hardened criminals that are not safe. Some of those people are scary dangerous and should never see the light of day.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No matter what crime they have committed, it is just not okay in any way to do this.
I hear a lot of people who don't get this simple fact that criminals aren't in prison only to get punished. The punishment is that they have their freedom taken away.
The main focus must be to rehabilitate and funny enough, that includes treating them as actual human beings. Rehabilitation is not just for them, but for the good of society as a whole.
Even if we take the prisoners health and well being out of the picture, I would like to know if there have been any riots during this time where employees have been hurt, because that would seem very likely it could be the fault of those greedy bastards lining their bank accounts. I would sure as heck join or start a riot if they were starving me.
Frankly, I don't see the big difference between these sheriffs and the dictators and fascists in countries that the US would very much not like to be compared to.
Despicable!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Starvation is actually a very good control tool, because if you are starving, you can't resist or riot.
Of course, the last group that used this were Nazi's in concentration camps (note to Spicey, they are concentration camps, not holocaust centers)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Unless I'm mistaken, if the inmates were under 18 years old, this would be considered child abuse, or even child endangerment. If they're over 65, there's elder abuse. A competent DA from another county ought to look at this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Where there is one, there may be others.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I do not care how many words they put on paper (aka "law"), it is not ok to embezzle. This is theft, keep it up and it becomes grand larceny. Either way, it is a felony.
Some of these backwoods billies think they can make their own laws and do whatever they please.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Who are the backwoods billies?
These are NOT backwoods billies, these are following closely in the footsteps of POTUS, US Senators, US Congressmen, Senior TLA's (CIA, FBI, NSA, DHS, IRS, etc) and prominent business men and women.
The only backwoods billies around are those who think there is an actual high standard of justice and have a strong and abiding belief in the US Constitution.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Who are the backwoods billies?
You mean those people who voted for POTUS, US Senators, US Congressmen who then appoint Senior TLA's (CIA, FBI, NSA, DHS, IRS, etc) ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Who are the backwoods billies?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This raises (and possibly answers) a good question:
Now that Arpaio's been voted out of office, who is the worst sheriff in America?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If you spend no money on food...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: If you spend no money on food...
One thing is for sure, the law is a load of crap. It invites a person to cut costs at any expense to fatten their own personal bank account. How the hell that law even passed?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: If you spend no money on food...
The number of prisoners was probably pretty low, and Sheriff was probably not well paid (and possibly part-time), and they were an elected official. I would guess that the law was intended to effectively buy the Sheriff food using portions of the prisoner stipend.
While it is clearly a bad law today, it may not have been quite as overwhelmingly stupid at the time it was passed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: If you spend no money on food...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Parallel?
Either way, there is misappropriated TAXPAYER money.
(The food $$ did also impact the inmates, but what I'm referring to is just the dollars.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Why shouldn't the sheriff be allowed to embezzle public funds? All his buddies in higher office do it so it must be ok as they are the ones who told him he could do it too.
We need to stop focusing on this sort of thing and concentrate on how to provide the uber riche with the constant flow of cash that they need to supply their habits. Please people - think of the rich for a change, they need your support and your money ... and your car and your house and your pension and your 401k and you had better sign up for the armed services and give up your life to ensure said monetary flow.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
This isn't a Trump issue obviously, so stop fucking blaming Trump and the current administration. All this was obviously going on in the past (and yes, under Obama) so stop thinking this is a dem/repub, backwoods (yes, crap happens in NYC/Boston/San Fran. too) issue.
Why do you seem to have no fucking problem with people violating the Constitution?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
- in the state of Alabama.
So let's not confuse the issue by saying that everyone does it so that makes it ok.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I do not see a problem here
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I do not see a problem here
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ana Franklin
morgancountywhistleblower.com
[ link to this | view in chronology ]