On September 27, 2024 U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued an order extending preliminary injunctive relief in the FCI Dublin class action and the term of the Special Master until December 31, 2024. The order cites a Bureau of Prison study showing that BOP’s disciplinary actions against the incarcerated women at the facility revealed a “shocking” error rate of 45%. The order is here. KTVU News covered this development in an article on September 30, ‘Shocking’ constitutional discipline violations at now-closed FCI Dublin: judge.
According to the order, “the BOP Western Regional Hearing Administrator has completed a review of disciplinary infractions issued to FCI Dublin AICs in recent years. The results are shocking. Of 824 infractions reviewed, 373 were expunged for due process or other deficiencies. Said differently, 45 percent of the infractions reviewed were declared void due to BOP’s own errors. Such deficiencies are having a domino effect. Insofar as disciplinary infractions are expunged, the impacted AIC’s case file must be reviewed and, in some cases, projected release dates must be recalculated. The impact can be meaningful. The Monitor reports the expungements already identified have resulted in over one hundred instances of credit restoration that have impacted release dates. Given the inherent liberty interests involved, the constitutional dimensions of the disciplinary errors made and necessity of timely reviews to remediate such issues are stark.”
RBGG’s Kara Janssen and co-counsel have been visiting members of the class who have been moved to other prisons around the U.S. According to the KTVU piece, “Janssen and her colleague, Susan Beaty, were visiting FCI Waseca in Minnesota this week and plan to visit FCI Aliceville in Alabama at the end of the month. Beaty has already visited SeaTac in Seattle. ‘A lot of women have been feeling demoralized. They haven’t seen us,”‘Janssen said. ‘But the special master is getting your messages and we are still here.'”