In a suit challenging excessive collect call rates charged to prisoners' families, friends and attorneys, the Indiana Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court's dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Chanelle Alexander and others (the Class) pay for collect calls from prisoners in Indiana's state prisons and county jails. On June 16, 2000, the Class filed a suit in state court claiming the state and the county sheriffs entered into contracts with telephone companies AT&T and Ameritech Indiana, respectively. The suit claimed (1) a breach of the common law duty of reasonableness; (2) the unauthorized taxing of a sum of money; (3) the unauthorized imposition of a licensing fee; (4) an unreasonable and unjust rate or service charge; (5) an unjust enrichment; (6) money had and received; (7) the combination to restrain and carry out restrictions on trade; (8) a combination to increase price; and (9) inadequate services and facilities to class members. In exchange for its contract, AT&T agreed to give the state of Indiana a 53 percent commission on long-distance calls from all state pay phones, including state owned buildings such as prisons. Ameritech Indiana agreed to pay Sheriff Jack Cottey a commission of 40 percent ...

Disclosure of Washington State Prisoner Phone Rates Stymied by the Courts

by John E. Dannenberg

When recipients of Washington state prisoner-originated long distance phone calls sought to compel disclosure of the telephone rates for those calls, the Washington superior, appellate and supreme courts held (as of July2004) that relevant Washington statutes which on their faces appear to require such disclosure in fact do not, and instead only provide legal remedies if a complainant demonstrates that underlying Washington regulations flowing from the cited statutes have been violated. The complainants accordingly next sought regulatory relief before the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC) on remand from the Superior Court, which on July 18, 2005 ordered the complaint to proceed there in the discovery phase. However, on September 6, 2005, the Superior Court summarily dismissed the entire complaint for lack of standing, without explanation.

Plaintiffs Sandra Judd and attorney Tara Herivel (collectively, Judd) for years received collect phone calls from PLN's Editor, Paul Wright, then a Washington state prisoner. They sought to compel the telephone companies, who were charging exorbitant tolls, to disclose their rate structures. The legal vehicle for the inquiry was Washington Revised Code §§ 80.36.510, .520 and .530. These ...

Mere Pendency of Proceedings Deprives Court of Jurisdiction in Jail Collect Call Case; Attorney Fee Awarded Reversed, Injunction Upheld

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed an award of attorney's fees, holding the mere pendency of proceedings that threatens harm is insufficient to invoke a district court's jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief.

This civil rights action was originally filed by Jeff Lynch, a pretrial detainee at Ohio's Hamilton County Justice Center (HCJC). Lynch alleged that HCJC's policy of allowing prisoners to make only collect telephone calls, in combination with the Hamilton County Public Defender's policy of refusing collect calls operated to deny pretrial detainees at HCJC their Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The second amended complaint added Mike Powers as a plaintiff.

Hamilton County moved to dismiss, based on lack of standing to bring the suit. Lynch was dismissed from the suit on that basis in January 2002. The Ohio Federal District Court, however, held that Powers had standing because he had a capias that was currently outstanding." That factual finding was incorrect. Power's cause of action arose after he was arrested for failing to appear on charge of operating a motor vehicle without a license and improper display ...

Though drugs and weapons have long been a bane to prison officials everywhere, prisons around the country and the world are now experiencing a new contraband problem: cellular telephones.

Texas prison officials learned how serious the problem was during a months-long undercover investigation that began in the fall of 2003. Electronic monitoring by the FBI had revealed that a member of the Texas Syndicate, a violent prison gang, was making and receiving wireless calls from the Darrington prison near Houston.

In the spring of 2004, investigators decided to raid the prisoner's cell--but they forgot to turn off the water. As they entered, the prisoner flushed the cell phone down his toilet. Prison officials, determined to recover the phone, quickly shut down the water lines and ordered several unlucky prisoners into the sewer traps with rakes to drag the bottom.

What happened next must have surprised everyone. They were pulling up cell phones like they were going fishing," said Lt. Terry Cobbs of the prison system's inspector general's office. And you'd think they'd be those inexpensive disposable phones like you buy at Wal-Mart. But we've even been seeing camera phones.

Other states are experiencing similar problems. In Pennsylvania, a 2002 sweep ...

by John E. Dannenberg


In a scenario reminiscent of the Spy versus Spy" cartoon, phone companies are gouging California jail prisoners' families with outlandish collect call rates, while prisoners are defrauding the phone companies by taking advantage of new computerized phones to clandestinely bill their defense attorneys for collect calls cleverly rerouted elsewhere.

An Associated Press investigation revealed that the average California county jail prisoner's local phone calls home cost more than seven times as much as a 50 cent pay-phone call, yielding over $120 million per year in trappings to the phone companies. From this pot, the phone companies pay nearly 50% in kickbacks to the counties for the privilege of gouging their customers - the jail phone contract going to the highest bidder of kickbacks. The annual payola to Los Angeles County alone runs nearly $17 million per year.

Perhaps the greater crime is that the burden of such calls falls upon the lower income families whose members most often land in jail. Worse yet is that when these costs become prohibitive, family contact is lost and the prisoners' broken lifeline to the community only deepens their chances of becoming stuck" in the system. Charles Carbone, an attorney ...

by Marvin Mentor


The California Department of Corrections (CDC) awarded a sole-source contract to MCI WorldCom (MCI) for all CDC prisoner phones. The October 29, 2004 agreement covers four years, with options for up to two one-year extensions. Significantly, CDC entered into the contract with no input from its prisoner users or their families even those few remaining phone call recipients who have accounts with MCI. Prior contracts with MCI and Verizon expired in February, 2005.

The new contract provides that in-state long distance rates will be reduced by 20% (from what has been $.93 per minute), but out-of-state rates will remain unchanged. Future rate reductions are provided for when call volumes increase (reviewed annually). MCI will also provide newer technology equipment that includes Personal Identification Number capability, which CDC might use in the future. MCI will upgrade equipment at its current sites.

According to Lorretta Fine, CDC's Telecommunications Branch (TB) Chief, the new contract is designed to aid CDC investigative staff. Statewide reports on telephone use can be generated. Auto-archiving will be done on MCI computers. Call detail records and voice recordings will be accessible for the life of the contract. MCI will provide computer workstations for investigative staff, ...

California Demands $1.6 Million In Diverted Telephone Revenues
From Private Prison Contractor

by John E. Dannenberg

The California Department of Corrections (CDC) has charged private prison contractor Marantha Corrections LLC with "misappropriating" more than $1 million in telephone revenues at its 500 bed prison in Adelanto, California, and ordered CDC's contract with Marantha terminated "for cause," effective September 30, 2004.

CDC Director Jeanne Woodford stated in a June 29, 2004 letter to Marantha that Marantha was "either unwilling or unable" to account for the phone funds, and as a result, was in breach of its $8.1 million contract with CDC. CDC spokesperson Margot Bach noted the squabble was not over performance, safety or security issues, but solely with their contract. The disputed funds are the commissions from phone calls that are collected by Marantha which are supposed, to be turned over to the state's Inmate Telephone Revenue Fund.

According to CDC documents obtained by the Sacramento Bee , Marantha's Chief Executive Terry Moreland had blocked the state from auditing Marantha's phone fund account. Moreland argued that they were insulated from audit because the phone service had been provided by Marantha's "landlord." CDC found out that that "landlord" was just another ...

by Madeline Severin, 25 Cardozo Law Review 1469, March, 2004

Review by John E. Dannenberg

We all know about how prisons and jails conspire with telephone companies to bilk recipients of prisoner phone calls via exorbitant chargesswollen by kickbacks approaching 60%but how does one legally challenge this scheme?

Yeshiva University Doctor of Jurisprudence candidate Madeline Severin has thoroughly researched existing case law, legislative histories and peer law review literature in creating her Cardozo Law Review treatise that insightfully discusses the history of state and federal legal challenges to prisoner telephone-call price gouging. Severin then proceeds to analyze each legal theory attempted, showing where it failed or occasionally, was held to have merit. From this analysis, she then looks forward to how the problem might have to be approached in the future. In sixty pages of text replete with 390 comprehensive footnotes informative for both pro-per and attorney readers, Severin first examines existing case law. She notes that federal prisoners pay lower rates, but that the legal theories protecting them have little to do with state law claims on prisoner phone rates.

One major obstacle is the "filed rate doctrine," wherein once a phone company has "filed" its rate plan with ...

The Illinois Court of Appeals for the Third District reinstated a prisoner's lawsuit against Ameritech over the company's alleged fraudulent intentional early disconnecting of prisoner phone calls.

Johnnie Flournoy, an Illinois state prisoner, filed suit in state court alleging fraud and negligence against Ameritech, the provider of prison phone services for intentionally disconnecting his collect phone calls early so as to force a second call and allow the collection of a second initial calling fee and surcharge. He also alleged that he sent his mother money to pay for the collect calls he made from prison. Ameritech moved for dismissal of the suit, citing the Illinois Public Utilities Act which grants the Illinois Commerce Commission exclusive jurisdiction over complaints concerning excessive rates or overcharges by public utilities companies. 220 ILCS 5/9 252. The circuit court dismissed the suit. Flournoy appealed.

The court of appeals first noted that claims for reparations lie within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commission. However, if the claim is for civil damages, a circuit court may hear the case. It then held that "the essence of Flournoy's claim is that Ameritech deliberately terminated his collect telephone calls prematurely, forcing him to call the same person again. ...

Virginia SCC Without Jurisdiction to Hear
Prisoner Phone Rate Challenge


The Virginia Supreme Court, in an un-published opinion, has held the State Corporation Commission (SCC) does not have jurisdiction to hear challenge to prisoner phone rates. Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) prisoner Robert E. Lee Jones, Jr., filed a complaint with the SCC alleging that M.C.I. Telecommunications Corporation (MCI) charged excessive rates for telephone service in the Commonwealth's prisons. The SCC entered a Final Order in Jones' favor. MCI and VDOC appealed, arguing that Code §56-234 prevents the SCC from exercising jurisdiction over "contracts for services rendered by any telephone company to the state government."


§ 56-34 requires "every public utility to furnish reasonably adequate service and facilities at reasonable and just rates to any person, firm, or corporation" and that "[t]he charge for such service shall be at the lowest rate applicable with schedules filed with the [SCC] pursuant to §56-236." However, § 56-234 specifically exempted from this requirement "schedules of rates, or contracts for service rendered by any telephone company to the state government&"


The Court favored the "Inmate Telephone System contract is an agreement between MCI and a state agency." The fact prisoners and recipients of their ...