Feds, Massachusetts prison officials strike mental health deal
Steve LeBlanc
Associated Press
Published Dec. 21, 2022
BOSTON — Federal investigators announced an agreement with Massachusetts prison officials Tuesday designed to ensure better care for those in the custody of the state Department of Correction who are suffering from serious mental health issues.
The resolution follows the release of a scathing report two years ago by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office that found troubling conditions inside Massachusetts prison facilities that authorities said had led to prisoners dying or seriously injuring themselves while on mental health watch.
The investigation, launched in 2018, found Massachusetts did not adequately supervise incarcerated individuals in mental health crisis, did not provide them adequate mental health care, and used prolonged mental health watches under restrictive housing conditions.
Under Tuesday's deal, the state has agreed to improve policies and training related to mental health care.
The improvements are designed to ensure that those suffering a mental health crisis receive three daily mental health contacts and that support staff interacts with them while they are on a mental health watch.
The agreement also calls for the development of an “Intensive Stabilization Unit” to provide treatment for those on extended therapeutic supervision who do not meet the requirements for in-patient hospitalization.
The state has agreed to provide better documentation of increasing mental health treatment for incarcerated individuals experiencing a prolonged mental health crisis. Under the agreement, the Department of Correction's mental health director will now have a role in determining the cell conditions and privileges for anyone on a mental health watch.
The 2020 report found the prison system wasn’t properly supervising inmates in mental health crisis and that prison staff had failed to take away items that inmates could use to harm themselves, including razors, batteries and other dangerous items.
Federal authorities had alleged the conditions violated the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said the duty to enforce laws doesn't end with a conviction.
“We also have a duty to ensure that once someone is incarcerated and in the custody and control of a state, local or federal government, that they receive constitutional treatment and adequate mental and physical health care," Rollins said.
The agreement also provides for the appointment of an independent monitor, Dr. Reena Kapoor, to ensure compliance. Kapoor is an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine.
“The Department has been diligent, transparent, and cooperative with the DOJ to advance our shared goal of improving mental health care for those experiencing a mental health crisis,” said Massachusetts Department of Correction Commissioner Carol Mici. “We remain deeply committed to the health and well-being of all entrusted to our care.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division launched the investigation in 2018.
When an organization does not have a corporate sugar daddy, or mommy every fund-raising drive is the one the determines what the budget will be going forward. That's bad because we always stay hungry, but it's good because we always stay hungry. The logic of that is stark and unavoidable. Truth: We love it this way. Be a Reader Supporter, it feels great!
FOCUS: In Georgia, a New District Attorney Is Circling Trump and His Allies Danny Hakim and Richard Fausset, The New York Times Excerpt: "Fani Willis has opened a criminal investigation into efforts by the Trump camp to overturn the former president's loss in Georgia. In an interview, Ms. Willis described a wide-ranging inquiry."
fter six weeks as a district attorney, Fani T. Willis is taking on a former president.
And not just that. In an interview about her newly announced criminal investigation into election interference in Georgia, Ms. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, made it clear that the scope of her inquiry would encompass the pressure campaign on state officials by former President Donald J. Trump as well as the activities of his allies.
“An investigation is like an onion,” she said. “You never know. You pull something back, and then you find something else.”
MASHPEE — U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling’s office sent a third subpoena to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe last month, this time demanding records concerning the relationship between the tribe’s Gaming Authority and the project manager on its First Light Resort & Casino.
The Sept. 8 subpoena was signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Wichers. In lieu of a tribal representative appearing physically in court before the grand jury Sept. 22, the subpoena requested that all records be sent electronically to Wichers, according to a copy obtained by the Cape Cod Times.
The subpoena requested a copy of an agreement from May 2014 and internal and external communications from June 2014 to December 2017 between the Gaming Authority and Robinson Green Beretta Corp. The corporation was the project manager in 2014 for the $1 billion casino project, working with the tribe, the project developer, Genting Group, and a design and construction team. It also worked with the tribe on the design and construction of its Tribal Government Center and is listed as the architect for the tribe’s upcoming early child care center.
Lelling’s office also requested all Gaming Authority contracts with David Greene, who was a tribal representative with RGB Architects.
The subpoena refers to “internal communications” as emails received by or copied to Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell as well as Louis Catarina Jr., who provided “strategic direction” and “management” and coordinated development of the resort and casino project, according to Catarina’s LinkedIn account. The request also includes nonclassified communications with the Gaming Authority’s then-general counsel Stephen Burr.
The tribe was to send all documents relating to any complaints, concerns or questions raised by any member or representative of the Gaming Authority concerning Robinson Green Beretta’s budget, pricing or invoices. It was also to send documents showing who approved each payment to the corporation.
Cromwell is the president of the tribe’s Gaming Authority, and the subpoena requested documents relating to a part of the tribe’s agreement with RGB that states: “The consultant may rely on the authority of the President of the (Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Gaming Authority) as to approving any changes in the scope or cost of the Services, including documents showing when and why the sentence was included and who approved its inclusion.”
Cromwell did not respond to a request for comment Thursday, and David DeQuattro, president and managing principal of Robinson Green Beretta Corp., also did not respond to a request for comment.
Federal grand jury investigations consist of about two dozen citizens serving as jury members to examine documents and pieces of evidence to determine if sufficient evidence exists that a crime occurred. They are traditionally secret, and it is difficult for the public to obtain information about the investigations and subpoenas.
The Sept. 8 subpoena is the third the tribe has received. The first one from June requested many of the tribe’s financial records, including copies of checks, expense reports and payments to other organizations. It also sought documents concerning any internal or external investigation or audit looking into any suspected theft, embezzlement or other wrongdoing by a tribe official, employee or contractor.
The Aug. 10 subpoena called for more information relating to the tribe’s elections, as well as copies of all contracts and meeting minutes concerning Robinson Green Beretta Corp.
Tribal attorney Benjamin Wish said the federal government has informed the tribe that it is not the target of the pending grand injury investigation.
“The Tribe intends to cooperate with the US Attorney’s Office concerning the subpoena requests and anticipates that the Tribe will also cooperate with any other proper request for information,” Wish said in an email. “The Tribe remains focused on economic development and supporting its members during the ongoing pandemic.”
It remains unclear what or who the target of the investigation is, but some tribal council members are concerned about Cromwell’s involvement and have been working to remove him as chairman. In a meeting last month, the council voted 5-3 not to remove Cromwell.
Over the weekend, tribal council member Carlton Hendricks sent an automated phone message to tribe members saying there would be an emergency general membership meeting on Oct. 11 at the powwow grounds regarding the three federal grand jury subpoenas that have been issued, COVID-19 funds the tribe received as well as membership concerns, but other tribe members said no such meeting was scheduled.
Hendricks did not respond to a request for comment.
Horrendous. Federal prosecutors argued that an 80-year-old serving a life sentence for drug offenses shouldn't be released because covid-19 is just "one more way to perish in prison."
—Erika
U.S. District Judge Donald Graham disagreed and ordered Atilano Dominguez, who was 27 years into his life sentence, to be released from federal prison on Tuesday, over the objections of the Miami U.S. Attorney's Office and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The U.S. government opposed his petition for compassionate release on the grounds that Dominguez, who's mostly confined to a wheelchair due to advanced arthritis in both knees, was a recidivism risk and that his life sentence was imposed with the knowledge that he could die of any number of illnesses in prison.
Dominguez was one of thousands of federal inmates who applied for compassionate release—a policy allows elderly and terminally ill inmates to go home ahead of schedule—in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In late March, Attorney General William Barr directed the BOP to use compassionate release, home confinement, and other measures to get elderly and at-risk inmates out of federal prison. Despite the release of more than 7,000 thousand inmates, though, the rollout of Barr's directive has been maddeningly inconsistent for inmates and families.
Dominguez was sentenced in 1994 to life in prison on two charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana and possession with intent to distribute marijuana. His sentence was upgraded to a mandatory life sentence after prosecutors filed a draconian "three strikes" enhancement against him based on previous cocaine offenses. Graham wrote in his order releasing Dominguez that the judge at Dominguez's original sentencing noted it was probably "too severe," but there was nothing the judge could do because of the mandatory sentence.
Dominguez' advanced age and long list of serious medical conditions—including diabetes, hypertension, and congestive heart failure—certainly fit the qualifying conditions for inmates at risk for COVID-19. But federal prosecutors said those were not "extraordinary and compelling reasons" to grant him relief, because he was expected to die in prison anyway.
"The government does not contest that the Defendant's age and medical condition render him vulnerable to serious consequences if he were to contract the illness," the Miami U.S. Attorney's Office argued in a motion opposing Dominguez's petition. "However, the Defendant's sentence of life imprisonment always contemplated that the Defendant could perish in prison. The existence of one more way to perish in prison, specifically COVID-19 in addition to heart disease, cancer, stroke, aneurysms and myriad other ailments that afflict the aged, does not alter the appropriateness of the Defendant's incarceration."
Democratic leaders’ heavy-handed behavior in Colorado seems to confirm those suspicions — and it could now jeopardize the entire effort to take back Congress from Donald Trump’s party.
A Winnable Senate Race for Almost Any Democrat
Colorado is now a Democratic stronghold — so much so that incumbent Republican senator Cory Gardner is Colorado’s only remaining statewide GOP elected official, and polls show he’s wildly unpopular. If Democrats put up literally any serviceable candidate, it’s a very good bet they will win back this seat that they lost six years ago in the national Republican wave of 2014.
This is a rare opportunity to put a real progressive in the Senate — or at least a lawmaker who would be as progressive as former Colorado Democratic senator Mark Udall, the liberal-leaning environmental champion who lost to Gardner. And that’s what the party has in former Colorado House speaker Andrew Romanoff.
He is a well-respected, grassroots-funded Democrat campaigning for Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. Though he has lost two tough races in the last decade, Romanoff is no political amateur: in 2004 — a terrible year for Democrats — he led Colorado Democrats’ successful effort to win the state legislature for the first time in thirty years. While being disowned by national party support and rejecting PAC money, he has scratched and clawed his way to raising a respectable $3 million. He has also scooped up endorsements from hundreds of current and former Colorado elected officials and won a decisive victory at the Democratic State Assembly. And he made waves earlier this year with an envelope-pushing ad rightly sounding the alarm about climate change.
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None of that has moved national party leaders to Romanoff’s campaign — and even if they won’t admit it, every politico in Colorado knows exactly why. It’s because Romanoff committed a sin considered unforgivable by Washington insiders: a decade ago he dared to run a progressive primary challenge against Michael Bennet, the former corporate raider who worked for right-wing billionaire Philip Anschutz, who helped Wall Street loot the Denver school system, and who then leveraged his connections to get himself appointed to the Senate without ever running in a single election.
Primarying an incumbent senator like Bennet is seen as a high crime among Washington Democrats — one that can never be forgiven, even a decade later. And so after Romanoff announced his candidacy, New York senator Chuck Schumer’s political machine — which had been run by Bennet in 2014 when Democrats got destroyed in Senate races — frantically sought out a corporate-approved alternative. The machine settled on trying to buy the Senate Democratic primary for John Hickenlooper after the former Democratic governor’s presidential campaign flamed out.
Excerpt: "In a fast-escalating crisis Friday night, Attorney General William Barr tried to oust Geoffrey Berman, the powerful US attorney for the Southern District of New York who has investigated a number of associates of President Donald Trump, but Berman defied him by refusing to step down."
A late-night announcement
The timing of the move, announced after 9 p.m. ET, immediately raised questions about the circumstances regarding Berman's departure.
Any forced ouster of Berman is likely to draw scrutiny inside the US attorney's office and among career prosecutors. He has been the US attorney for Manhattan since 2018, and under his leadership, his office prosecuted Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen, is investigating top Trump confidante Rudy Giuliani and indicted the former New York mayor's associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.
Last fall, Justice Department officials discussed replacing Berman with Ed O'Callaghan, a senior official, but then prosecutors indicted the Giuliani associates, a move that appeared to extend Berman's tenure.
Trump and Barr have long taken issue with the office's handling of various cases, but people close to the office believe its string of extremely high-profile investigations -- including those of Cohen, Giuliani and Jeffrey Epstein -- may have deterred Justice officials from pushing out Berman because his exit would have been certain to cause an uproar and charges of political interference. For the last several months, however, largely due to the coronavirus pandemic, the office has had a relatively quiet period, and some believe Barr seized that opportunity to oust Berman.
Preet Bharara, a CNN senior legal analyst who was fired by Trump as US attorney for the Southern District shortly after Trump took office in 2017, told CNN's Don Lemon that the late-night announcement was a "highly irregular thing to do ... when there are all sorts of investigations swirling around."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the "late Friday night dismissal reeks of potential corruption of the legal process. What is angering President Trump? A previous action by this U.S. Attorney or one that is ongoing?"
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, said "America is right to expect the worst of Bill Barr, who has repeatedly interfered in criminal investigations on Trump's behalf," adding that he would invite Berman to testify.
Excerpt: "Protesters toppled the only statue of a Confederate general in the nation's capital and set it on fire on Juneteenth, the day marking the end of slavery in the US, amid continuing anti-racism demonstrations after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis."
Cheering demonstrators jumped up and down as the 11-foot (3.4-meter) statue of Albert Pike – wrapped with chains – wobbled on its high granite pedestal before falling backward, landing in a pile of dust. Protesters then set a bonfire and stood around it in a circle as the statue burned, chanting, “No justice, no peace, no racist police”.
Eyewitness accounts and videos posted on social media indicated police were on the scene but did not intervene. The president, Donald Trump, quickly tweeted about the toppling, calling out DC mayor Muriel Bowser and writing: “The DC police are not doing their job as they watched a statue be ripped down and burn. These people should be immediately arrested. A disgrace to our country.”
Jubilant protesters read out Trump’s tweet over a bullhorn and cheered. After the statue fell, most protesters returned peacefully to Lafayette park near the White House.
The Pike statue has been a source of controversy over the years. The former Confederate general was also a longtime influential leader of the Freemasons, who revere Pike and who paid for the statue. Pike’s body is interred at the DC headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, which also contains a small museum in his honor.
The statue, dedicated in 1901, was located in Judiciary Square about half a mile from the US Capitol. It was built at the request of Masons who successfully lobbied Congress to grant them land for the statue as long as Pike would be depicted in civilian – not military – clothing.
Racial tensions in the country reached boiling point and spilled into the streets after Floyd’s killing late last month. Video showed a white police officer pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes as the handcuffed black man said: “I can’t breathe.” The officer, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with murder.
Civil rights activists and some local government officials in DC had campaigned for years to get the statue taken down but needed the federal government’s approval to do so.
“Ever since 1992, members of the DC council have been calling on the federal government to remove the statue of Confederate Albert Pike (a federal memorial on federal land). We unanimously renewed our call to Congress to remove it in 2017,” the DC council tweeted Friday.
A proposed resolution calling for the removal of the statue referred to Pike as a “chief founder of the post-civil war Ku Klux Klan.” The Klan connection is a frequent accusation from Pike’s critics and one which the Masons dispute.
The Waorani currently number around 5,000 in three provinces of the Amazon. (photo: Adobe Stock)
Ecuador's Waorani People Win Another Victory Against Government teleSUR Excerpt: "Indigenous Waorani People of Ecuador's Amazon won Wednesday in an Ecuadorean court precautionary measures requiring the government to take urgent actions against the spread of the new coronavirus in Waorani territory, NGO Amazon Frontlines has reported." READ MORE
A new environmental health investigation finds compelling evidence that links global climate change to negative pregnancy outcomes across the country. (photo: Getty Images)
Climate Change Linked to Serious Pregnancy Risks, 'Landmark' Study Finds Wyatte Grantham-Philips, USA TODAY Grantham-Philips writes: "An environmental health investigation published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) finds compelling evidence that links global climate change to negative pregnancy outcomes across the country."
The review analyzed 68 U.S. studies dating back to 2007 – which included over 32 million births.
84 percent of the births showed a statistically significant association between increased air pollution and heat exposure (related to climate change) and serious risks for pregnancy – specifically preterm birth, low birth weight, and stillbirth.
“[The investigation shows] that there is a clear association of prenatal exposure of air pollutants and health outcomes – children’s health outcomes...Here, we’re saying, the air we breathe affects deliveries," said Conry, who was not an author of this new research.
“The more you dig, you could really say there’s a whole generation of children being born like ‘pre-polluted,’" said Dr. Nathaniel DeNicola, MD, MSHP, the senior author of the study, an obstetrician/gynecologist, and Environmental Health Expert for ACOG.
"[As OB-GYNs] we have an obligation to look at where our field can have an impact.”
Both Conry and DeNicola stress the importance of recognizing that one of the greatest consequences of climate change is its association with human health.
"Who’s the image of climate change? For a while it’s been the polar bear – the polar bear on a floating iceberg. More recently, it’s kind of become the super-storm – and maybe the TV journalists blowing in the wind in those super-storms," DeNicola said.
"[But] really the image of climate change and its effects should be human health – kids and pregnant women being affected right now.”
The lead author of the study, Dr. Bruce Bekkar, MD, a retired obstetrician and current full-time climate activist, agrees. He also describes why their research in this particular study focused exclusively on the U.S.:
"We purposely excluded papers that had any sort of population in them that were other than US domestic, because we want people to understand the impact of this story," he said. "It may well be worse in other places, but you can’t step away from the findings of our story and say, ‘It’s happening somewhere else.’ It’s literally all around us all over the country right now.”
The subpopulations found in the investigation to have highest risk included minority groups, especially Black mothers, and well as individuals with asthma.
Conry explains how under-served women who do outdoor labor, or live in a "desert in the cities," for example, are strongly impacted.
“Black and Hispanic women who are working in the farms or in the fields...they’ve got heat and air pollution, so they’re particularly vulnerable," she said.
As environments and living conditions across the world, and even the country, vary, the importance of education is stressed.
”We hope [women and families] realize that this is a risk factor for them that they need to engage with," said Bekkar. "And that means asking their [health care providers] ways specifically that they can address it, because these effects vary so widely in terms of time of year, and location geographically.”
ACOG finds climate change to be an urgent concern to women's health, as well as a major public health challenge worldwide – something the organization reaffirmed in April 2018.
"Climate change has a disproportionate effect on global women’s health, as it broadens existing gender-based health disparities," ACOG wrote in a position statement.
"We ask that government and public health agencies take steps to ensure the protection of women’s health services and human rights."
And although Conry feels that even more research could be done, she stresses that that doesn't need to halt change.
"We don’t have to wait for all the research to take place to be able to take a strong stance on climate change, on air pollution, on the quality of life," she said. "I think that’s what ACOG stands for – we’re saying, prioritize health and the environment, and we call for reproductive and environmental justice.”
In terms of policy, Conry urges the U.S. to re-join, and be a leader, of the Paris Climate Agreement. She also suggests that more regulations may be necessary – whether that be changing air standards, or improving working conditions.
“Global health should be a guiding light," said Conry, "so when we say that we’ve got a crisis, we need to address it as the global emergency it is."
Bekkar, DeNicola and Conry explain the need for all parties – the medical community, policymakers, and families themselves across the country – to learn more and act, in order to help combat these serious consequences.
“We spend, as obstetricians, so much time counseling pregnant women about all these precautions," said DeNicola. "But there’s only so much [pregnant women] can do, they realistically cannot control the temperature outside or the air pollution that they encounter, and so, beyond the individual actions...the real solutions are system solutions, and primarily those are controlled by policymakers.”
Both DeNicola and Bekkar also believe that they can already see some change, but it's an ongoing process.
“I think it’s a time, right now, in society where we’re being reminded that we’re not just independent, we’re all connected...all of those sort of micro-decisions make a significant impact on the exposures that people face," said Bekkar. "All of these exposures are at the hands of elected officials, so, come November, no one should vote for anybody that doesn’t stand up against the climate crisis and want to do something about it right now."
"As we’ve so vividly been shown around the world in the past couple of months, when you stop burning fossil fuels so much, when traffic drops off and airplanes fly less and things like that – nature rebounds...and that has a direct impact on people's health."
fter six weeks as a district attorney, Fani T. Willis is taking on a former president.
