Massachusetts prisons sued for allegedly violating rights of mentally ill News
Massachusetts prisons sued for allegedly violating rights of mentally ill

[JURIST] The Disability Law Center of Massachusetts [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) [official website] on Thursday, saying the state's treatment of mentally ill prisoners violates the Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act [text]. According to the suit filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts [official website], the state isolates mentally ill prisoners in separate units for up to 23 hours per day, causing severe psychological damage and elevating the risk of suicide. Seven Massachusetts inmates committed suicide last year, and an estimated twenty-five percent of all inmates suffer from mental illness.

The suit seeks reforms that include special training for guards and increased monitoring of mentally ill inmates by mental health experts. The DOC says it plans to follow recommendations produced from its own study [press release], which includes a Corrective Action Plan [PDF] to reduce suicides. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.