A Message from Karen Murtagh-Monks...

New York State has an obligation to provide quality legal services to all, regardless of economic and social status. The fulfillment of this obligation is, indeed, the underpinning of any fair and just society. When I first came to PLS, in 1983, as a law intern, we had a staff of over 30 attorneys and six offices across the state. Soon after, we witnessed a prison population explosion in New York State that resulted in the incarceration of over 70,000 people by 1997. Although PLS’s growth did not keep up with the prison population, we did receive gradual increases in our funding which, in turn, enabled us to, by the mid 1990’s, employ over 40 attorneys in seven offices across the state. Because of this, we were able to provide the quality legal services the state is obligated to provide and make great strides in prison reform.

Our work through the 80’s and 90’s helped to decrease brutality and increase compliance with regulations and constitutional mandates in disciplinary proceedings. In our Plattsburgh office alone, we obtained either successful verdicts against or settled cases against over 150 individually named officers. As a result of our brutality litigation there are cameras in most New York State prisons, use of force examination procedures and protocols that must be followed by DOCS employees, including all medical staff and strict cell removal and strip frisk procedures. Our success in the disciplinary area was no less. We won hundreds of disciplinary appeals and litigated and won hundreds more court cases on various issues such as witness denial, lack of substantial evidence, failure to assess the credibility and reliability of confidential information and the holding of inabsentia hearings. Our work resulted in, among other things, prisoners being afforded their first amendment rights to practice their religion, prohibiting the creation of an “AIDS” only prison, improving the living conditions at various prisons across the state, protecting the visitation rights of prisoners, and improving the policies and practices regarding strip searches and body cavity searches.

By the late 1990’s, however, PLS was struggling to stay afloat. A Governor that did not share the philosophy that New York State’s obligation to provide quality legal services to all, included providing those services to prisoners, vetoed our funding and in 1998 we were forced to close our doors. Thanks to the support from the New York State Assembly we were able to reopen in 1999 but not without losing many talented and experienced staff members. In 2001, our budget was cut again and we were forced to decrease our staff even further.

It is now 2009 and due to stagnant funding over the past eight years, PLS now has only four offices and only 12 attorneys. With our present funding, it is impossible to provide the level of services that our clients so desperately need, but we are doing our best. Even with our limited staff, over the past year, we have had significant successes in many areas including administrative segregation, disciplinary and brutality cases, first amendment rights, guardianships, merit time, jail time and sentencing issues, habeas corpus actions and mental health advocacy.

In addition, over the past few years we have updated existing educational form memos and created new ones to enable us to address the myriad of concerns that our clients have from issues such as guard harassment to merit time to how to file a habeas corpus action. We have also continued to publish our quarterly Newsletter, Pro Se, sent to inmates who request it free of charge. Over 5000 prisoners receive our newsletter every quarter. Pro Se provides information on recent cases and practice pieces on various areas of the law for those inmates who must represent themselves. Through form memos and Pro Se, we are able to expand the reach of our services to hundreds more prisoners.

As difficult as these present economic times are, as we move forward in 2009, I am confident that PLS will continue to effect real change in our prisons. We have accomplished a great deal since we first opened our doors in 1976, but there is still much work to be done. Securing civil and human rights for prisoners, advocating for more humane prisons and for a more humane criminal justice system is our mission. Regardless of the hurdles we face, we will continue to work hard to fulfill that mission.

Karen L. Murtagh-Monks is the Executive Director Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York (PLS). She is a graduate of Clarkson University and Albany Law School. She has litigated a variety of prisoners’ rights issues including prisoners’ due process rights at disciplinary hearings, excessive force, treatment of mentally ill prisoners, the First Amendment, the constitutionality of State statutes, and the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). She has previously worked as a staff attorney, managing attorney, Director of Litigation and Deputy Director for PLS. She has provided extensive training to staff on administrative and Article 78 practice and how to litigate excessive force cases in federal court. She has also served on the faculty of Albany Law School as an adjunct professor where she established a clinic program for prisoners’ rights and taught Civil Procedure, Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Court of Claims Practice, and Litigation Skills.