A lawyer for prison-abuse whistleblower Deane Brown has announced plans to train a research team to aid in a planned federal civil-rights suit to force the state to bring Brown back to Maine from a Maryland prison and collect monetary compensation for the harsh treatment he says he suffered in the Maine State Prison’s Supermax — officially, its Special Management Unit.
Brown claims he was sent to Maryland in November in retaliation for his outspoken criticism — in Phoenix articles and on a Rockland radio station — of Supermax conditions. Prison officials say they transferred him for “security” reasons. (See “Baldacci’s ‘political prisoner,’” by Lance Tapley, November 24, 2006.)
Attorney Lynne Williams, of Bar Harbor, says she expects her first training session to take place January 26 in either Portland or Augusta. Members of the Portland-based Victory Garden Project, a prison-reform group, plan to attend, she says. (People interested in participating may contact her at lwilliamslaw@earthlink.net or 207.288.8485.) She is working as a volunteer, assisted by the liberal National Lawyers Guild.
Related:
Letters to the Portland editor: December 29, 2006, Letters to the Portland editor: May 4, 2007, Inmate sues prison officials in federal court, More 
- Letters to the Portland editor: December 29, 2006
Cheers to Lance Tapley for his quality reporting on the Maine State Prison and the apparent political persecution of Deane Brown (see “ Lockdown ,” December 15).
- Letters to the Portland editor: May 4, 2007
God bless the First Amendment.
- Inmate sues prison officials in federal court
Did the Maine Department of Corrections violate the First Amendment’s free-speech guarantee by keeping inmate and human-rights activist Deane Brown from contact with the news media?
- Seeking humane treatment
Some Maine people are taking moral responsibility for the way supermax inmates are treated.
- Are the prisons overcrowded?
I am asking the whole Legislative Committee to physically go and inspect the prison to ascertain how much bed space is there.
- Group seeks to hold Maine to UN standard
Next week Portland-based prison activists will be knocking on Munjoy Hill doors.
- Judge orders injections for Maine prisoner
A Maryland court has ordered Maine prisoner Deane Brown to be forcibly injected with insulin, if necessary.
- Prison ‘troublemaker’ confronts racism, medical abuse
Vacillating between grit and despair — between aggressive lawsuits and suicide attempts — Deane Brown, the prisoner who in 2005 blew the whistle on the torture of mentally ill inmates at the Maine State Prison’s solitary-confinement “Supermax” unit, is struggling against prison conditions in Maryland, where he was exiled by the Baldacci administration.
- Lockdown
If you were a reporter and you received a letter like the one excerpted below, what would you make of it? Lance Tapley discusses reporting the prisons
- James Brown
Brown was arguably the only rock and roll era performer to equal Elvis Presley in vocal authority, charisma, stage presence, song interpretation, and sexual magnetism.
- Stonewalling is normal
I could cite many examples of the difficulty in reporting to the Maine public what goes on behind the cement and bureaucratic walls of the public’s prison system — especially, in reporting brutal practices. I will give just a few.
- Less
Topics:
This Just In
, Criminal Sentencing and Punishment, Deane Brown, Lynne Williams
