Civil Rights Violations

A new federal lawsuit--the third of its kind in a year--alleges Ventura County sheriff's deputies use a special chair to torture and humiliate inmates. Eric Pratt, 25, of Oxnard filed the latest civil rights lawsuit alleging he was denied access to a bathroom for seven hours while strapped to the chair, used to control violent prisoners in the Ventura County Jail in Ventura.

An Irvine man who says he worked as an undercover informant for the FBI, most notably as a Muslim convert in an anti-terrorism case, filed a lawsuit Friday accusing his law enforcement handlers of violating his civil rights and endangering his life. Craig Monteilh, 47, says he worked as an informant for the FBI from 2004 through 2008, providing information and assistance in narcotics, bank robbery and murder for hire investigations before being asked to go undercover as part of an anti-terrorist effort in Orange County, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

A tall, thick, aging black man steps out of a limousine and trudges toward the hotel ballroom where he is scheduled to give one of his rare speeches. Black bellhops and maids and doormen freeze in place, pointing. Black waiters and waitresses begin streaming out of the kitchen for a glimpse of him. Elderly black people, some with tears in their eyes, stand on tiptoes to see better and wave. A white man, awed by the emotional reaction, taps a black man on the arm: "What's goin' on?

The national movement that has resulted in disciplinary codes aimed at restricting hate speech on campus has had a scattered effect in Southern California, according to college and university administrators surveyed Thursday.

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will revisit one of the best known legal battles of the 1960s and decide again whether the Constitution requires that crime suspects be warned of their rights before they are questioned by police. The issue is back before the court, thanks to a long-forgotten provision in a 1968 anti-crime bill and a determined campaign by a conservative law professor from Utah.

At 6:30 on the morning of July 26, a contingent of off-duty U.S. marshals and officials from software maker Novell Inc. rang the doorbell at Joseph and Miki Casalino's home outside Salt Lake City. Thinking her husband had forgotten something when he left for work, Miki padded to the door in her robe and was shocked to find a marshal flashing his badge.

Ed Jagels was a rich kid from San Marino, fresh out of law school, when he signed up to be a Kern County prosecutor in 1975. His prep school pedigree--prominent lawyer dad and society page mom--didn't exactly resonate with the Dust Bowl Okies and Arkies who built this town. So Jagels found another way to get inside California's insular farm belt, highlighting the summers he spent as a cowboy on the family cattle spread in Lake County. "I knew how to hunt, I knew how to ride," he said.

Sandra Miller--mother of two, a part-time city employee and wife of a Long Beach police officer--recently gave the Long Beach City Council an earful on matters affecting the Police Department. Why, Miller asked, should officers agree to give up two-man patrols and end their four-day workweek, both benefits they have enjoyed for years?

Los Angeles County officials on Monday tentatively approved a $1.75-million settlement of a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 27-year-old paranoid schizophrenic inmate who has sued claiming he was nearly beaten to death by sheriff's deputies in the Hall of Justice Jail. Michael Frlekin was in a coma for several weeks and suffered permanent brain damage as a result of the Oct. 15, 1990, incident, his lawyers say.

Seventy-five years after an Indiana mob dragged him from his jail cell and nearly hanged him, James Cameron was on hand Monday to watch the Senate apologize for its failure to try to stop the lynchings that terrorized African Americans well into the 20th century. Cameron, 91 and in a wheelchair, is believed to be the only living survivor of an attempted lynching.