QUESTION: finding an instance cited in a court ruling (Overton v Bazzetta, U.S. Court of Appeals)

question / pregunta: 

In the U.S. Court of Appeals decision in Overton V. Bazzetta, the opinion referenced an incident that happened in a prison: "Visitors were assigned specific seats or tables and were expected to remain where assigned. However, these expectations often were not realized. This was particularly true with respect to child visitors, who often left their assigned position and mingled wiht other children or even with other prisoners. It was during such a wandering period that a 3-year-old child was sexually assaulted by an inmate, an incident that the district judge described as a 'public relations disaster' and Bolden [Daniel Bolden, Deputy Director for the Bureau of Correctional Facilities] termed 'a nightmare.'"

HOw or where would I find out in what prison this occurred?

Answers

-Please note that the next answer box comes to a different conclusion - and the author of this answer thinks that one is probably right-

It appears to have been at Saginaw Correctional Facility according to the testimony summarized in this document:
1997 FED App. 0264P (6th Cir.)
File Name: 97a0264p.06

Luella Burke, the warden at Saginaw Correctional Facility, testified at the preliminary injunction hearing that the visitation area there could handle 133 visitors at one time. Sally Langley, the warden at Florence Crain women's facility in Coldwater, Michigan, testified that the visitation room there had a seating capacity of 45. Both wardens, and Daniel Bolden, Deputy Director for the Bureau of Correctional Facilities, the State's third witness, testified that these rooms were not "nice places" for children. When asked to elaborate, he said: Conduct of other visitors is the primary concern in terms of sexual behavior. We've had actual fist fights in there, we've had people assault people, lot of groping and other inappropriate behaviors that go on that people were visiting, and those things were observed and viewed by these children. Rules of conduct were imposed for visitation areas, including a prohibition against touching or exposing breasts, buttocks or the genital area, but there were numerous infractions of this rule. Bolden acknowledged that prison officials had had "literally hundreds of cases regarding sexual misconduct." Warden Burke testified about a letter she had received from a visiting wife which "talked about seeing triple X stuff in the visiting room, and she was referring to the groping, genital groping, breast groping, things of that sort which, you know, does go on . . . ." Visitors were assigned specific seats or tables and were expected to remain where assigned. However, these expectations often were not realized. This was particularly true with respect to child visitors, who often left their assigned positions and mingled with other children or even with other prisoners. It was during such a wandering period that a three-year-old child was sexually assaulted by an inmate, an incident that the district judge described as a "public relations disaster" and Bolden termed "a nightmare." [paragraph breaks removed]


Answer posted by:
jim miller

The Google search: David Shepardson Prison Visitation Rules Criticized gets 46 hits, including TAKING A STEP BACK: THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT’S RULING IN Overton V Bazzetta. LOYOLA OF LOS ANGELES LAW REVIEW Vol. 37:1831. Of this long review's 135 references, no. 2 is a Human Rights Watch report that claims to refer to the incident: NOWHERE TO HIDE: RETALIATION AGAINST WOMEN INCARCERATED IN MICHIGAN STATE PRISONS 1998)
This Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review may be the very article you saw – on page 10 it says: "In fact, what prompted "a wholesale review of [the MDOC’s] visitation policies" was the sexual assault of a 3-year old in 1994." But its reference #2 says not a word about the incident - unless it is ONLY in the first part the reference: "2. David Shepardson, Prison Visitation Rules Criticized; Rehabilitation Suffers Under State’s Security Concerns, Critics Say, DETROIT NEWS, June 17, 2001, at 1C". That news article would have to be ordered via Interlibrary Loan. Search Open Worldcat "detroit news" to see what libraries closest to you have it.

A Google search: "three year old" "saginaw correctional" gets 9 hits, including a UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN case "...Warden Luella Burke, of the Saginaw Correctional Facility, .... found to have molested a three year old girl who had been brought to the facility by her ..."

But searching: year old , in the HTML version (use CTRL-F), I find: "Another articulated concern in passing the visitation restrictions was the safety and security of minor children. In 1994, an inmate at the MDOC Muskegon facility was found to have molested a three year old girl who had been brought to the facility by her mother (a friend of the inmate) for a prison visit."

The Google search,: "muskegon correctional" "three year old" gets 8 hits, including an August 10, 1995 press release, which says: "The emergency rules, set to expire on August 29, were requested in part due to a sexual assault of a three-year-old girl at a Muskegon Correctional Facility last year, and an effort to stem the flow of illegal drugs and potential weapons into the state's prisons"

web page for Muskegon

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