BY MARTHA BELLISLE
For decades, Nevada prison inmates have tapped out their legal briefs and appealed their convictions on old typewriters perched atop shelves in their cells.
But last year, corrections officials swept through the state institutions and confiscated hundreds of the portable writing machines, arguing parts could be converted into weapons. To support the new ban, they cited two incidents: one in which an inmate died and another when a guard was threatened.
In a growing pile of lawsuits against the state and the Department of Corrections, inmates are protesting the new rule, saying officials are using the security argument as an excuse to try to slow their legal complaints about Nevada's overcrowded prisons and difficult living conditions.
They also say the increase in violence in the prisons is the result of failed policies that have forced more and more inmates together into smaller spaces. Trying to quell the flow of suits challenging these issues by taking away their writing tools, they say, violates their constitutional rights.
The Nevada attorney general's office filed a response asking the federal court to proclaim, once and for all, that the department "has a legal right to declare typewriters unauthorized property," and that the ban on typewriters does not violate inmate rights.
"Historically, typewriters have been an issue because their parts can be turned into weapons," said Greg Smith, a former guard and current spokesman for the Department of Corrections. "The attacks precipitated more discussion for a ban."
Gary Piccinini, a senior officer with the department, said in a memo that several parts in particular are deadly. The rubber roller on one type of typewriter has a hollow piece of cylindrical metal inside that's 14 inches long and "is very heavy and could be used as a club." The cylindrical piece in the Brother typewriter "can also be made into a stabbing weapon," he said.
The Canon typewriter has two other metal parts that can be sharpened into a slicing type weapon, he said.
While not involved in the suits, the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada said typewriters are a critical part of the pro se legal process, in which individuals represent themselves, and efforts should be made to allow their use.
"It's disappointing that the department of corrections could not have found a middle ground that protected inmate safety while allowing some access to typewriters," said Lee Rowland, a lawyer with the group's Reno office. "Inmate restrictions should be linked to actual and demonstrable safety risks, especially when they affect a fundamental right such as access to the court system."
Nicole Moon, spokeswoman for the AG's office, said the ban was not meant to stop lawsuits.
"The ban on typewriters was implemented for safety and security, and is in no way intended to affect inmate litigation," she said.
Packed cells
As with many prison systems across the country, Nevada's correctional facilities are busting at the seams.
Gov. Jim Gibbons used those words to describe the conditions during a tour of a correctional center last year, and Howard Skolnik, director of the Department of Corrections, told reporters: "To say we are in a crisis is not an exaggeration."
By last May, the state housed 13,113 inmates, 1,196 over capacity, Skolnik said. The influx forced prison officials to house inmates in program rooms, activity centers and even tents. At the Warm Springs Correctional Center last year, four inmates were being squeezed into cells measuring 12 feet by 12 feet.
The prison population is projected to top 21,000 by 2016.
Inmate killed
At Ely State Prison, the state's only maximum-security facility, violent inmates who had been living alone now share their space, a situation in which there has been at least one death.
In December 2006, Anthony Beltran was killed, allegedly by cellmate Douglas Scott Potter.
The weapon was "the roller pin from inside the platen of the inmate's typewriter," Greg Cox, deputy director of operations for DOC, said in an affidavit. "It is easily accessible and easily concealed."
That was the first incident that sparked the typewriter ban, the attorney general's staff said in its response. The second was March 2007, when an inmate tried to stab a guard with a weapon that had been "fashioned from a piece of an inmate typewriter."
Officials announced the following day that typewriters were prohibited at Ely, and by May, extended the ban to all prisons.
Inmate Russell Cohen filed motions for injunctions in at least seven legal actions, saying the ban was unconstitutional. The state responded with its filing in June 2007.
At least 13 actions have been filed in federal court over the typewriter issue, said Alicia Lerud, a deputy attorney general. Three other federal cases are pending in which the documents have not been served, she said, and at least four cases in state court over the typewriter ban.
Some inmates at the Ely facility say the attack on Beltran was destined to happen, regardless of the weapon used.
"It is simply irrational to blame the December 2006 attack on a typewriter, when televisions, extension cords and even prison boots have been used and are available in situations similar to the December 2006 incident," inmates Travers Greene and Paul Browning said in their handwritten motion.
"When an inmate is committed to inflicting harm on another," they said, "the failed policies of the administration -- not the weapon involved -- creates the opportunity for injury. Under these failed policies, it was only a matter of time before an actual murder to (sic) occurred."
Browing said in an affidavit that Potter told him that he had "repeatedly pleaded with prison officials not to place him in the cell with Mr. Beltran and if this happened, there would be trouble."
Potter also sent prison officials three notes stating his violent intentions.
In the first one, Potter said he wanted to be in a single cell, and said, "I have no intention of living in lock down with whoever you decide I am to live with, so make sure he is big, knows how to fight, and ain't afraid to die."
In the second note, Potter said he wouldn't live "24/7 in a box" with someone.
"I give fair warning that whoever you move in I will physically assault savagely," he wrote.
He said he would testify for the new cell mate in the lawsuit he would surely file "for you guys knowingly placing him in harm's way."
On Dec. 28, 2006, prison guards were preparing to take Beltran and Potter to the showers. As was routine, they started to handcuff the inmates through the food slot before opening the cell door, Las Vegas lawyer Jeff Galliher said in a wrongful death suit he filed against the Department of Corrections on behalf of Baltran's family.
They cuffed Beltran first, Galliher said, and "as soon as Beltran was completely restrained with the handcuffs, Potter ran from the back of the cell and began striking Beltran on the right side of his body with what appeared to be a silver colored bar."
An autopsy found Beltran sustained 14 puncture wounds that struck his lung, heart and liver. He died in the cell.