The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

In October 2000, Dick Cheney faced off for a debate with Connecticut
Sen. Joseph Lieberman. The 60-year-old Cheney appeared comfortable
discussing the ins and outs of policy and made good-natured jokes
about Lieberman's singing abilities, or lack thereof. Cheney's smooth
performance reflected his many years in public service. But the
aspiring vice president also had a strong debate-preparation team
made up of longtime friends and GOP loyalists. Among them was
Gustavus Adolphus Puryear IV, a legislative director for Tennessee
senator Bill Frist, who was on contract with the Bush/Cheney
campaign. Puryear apparently did such a good job prepping Cheney that
he was called in again in 2004 to help him gear up for his debate
with Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards.

Puryear's efforts on behalf of the Bush administration paid off last
June when the president nominated him to be a federal trial court
judge for the Middle District of Tennessee. Puryear certainly isn't
the first judicial nominee selected primarily for his political
service, but still, his resume is remarkably thin on the practice of
law, a basic prerequisite even for the best-connected political hacks.

Puryear got his start in politics in the mid-1990s working as counsel
to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, then chaired by Fred
Thompson, as it investigated the Clinton fundraising scandals. From
there he went to work for Frist. Beyond a brief stint in private
practice for a corporate law firm when he was fresh out of law
school, Puryear has spent more time inside an executive suite than a
courtroom. And it's that corporate work that makes him an especially
questionable candidate for the federal bench.

Puryear was in Washington last week for his confirmation hearing
before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Senators Arlen Specter
(D.-Pa,) and Dianne Feinstein (D.-Ca.) both put his resume under a
microscope, noting his conspicuous lack of trial experience. At one
point Specter asked him point blank, "How many cases have you
actually tried?" To which Puryear answered: Two. Indeed, according to
his written questionnaire for the committee, of the two cases he has
tried in the entirety of his legal career, he was lead counsel on one
of them. The last time he litigated a case in federal court was more
than a decade ago.

Puryear has spent the bulk of his legal career at the Tennessee-based
Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private
prison company. As its general counsel since 2001, Puryear has made
millions of dollars working for a company that profits from the
country's incarceration boom, particularly through his recent sale of
more than $3 million worth of the company's stock. (His financial
disclosure form shows a net worth of more than $13 million.) His
employer creates enormous conflicts for Puryear as a potential
federal judge, as the CCA gets sued all the time, often in the very
district where he hopes to preside as judge. Since 2000, roughly 260
cases have been filed in that court against the CCA, its officers,
and subsidiaries.

In addition, Puryear's current job involves overseeing the CCA's
defense against inmate litigation, a prison staple that he has
publicly dismissed as a nuisance, even though such litigation has led
to significant verdicts and settlements against the company. For
instance, in 2000, a South Carolina jury hit the CCA with a $3
million verdict for abusing juveniles. Other successful suits have
alleged that the company's employees abused inmates and provided
negligent medical care. Yet in a quote he no doubt now regrets, in
2004 Puryear said that, "Litigation is an outlet for inmates. It's
something they can do in their spare time." Inmate lawsuits typically
account for more than 10 percent of the docket in Tennessee's Middle
District, meaning that Puryear will see his share of them if he gets
confirmed.

During his confirmation hearing last week, Puryear told the committee
that he would recuse himself from any cases involving the CCA—at
least, he said, for some time after he's divested all of his stock in
the company. He dismissed concerns about his conflict of interest by
noting that the CCA cases make up a small part of the court's
workload and that his recusals would not create problems for the
other judges. But his promises to recuse still don't get to the heart
of a fundamental conflict: To the CCA, inmates are a revenue stream
warehoused at the cheapest price. This not exactly the view of the
criminal justice system you want from a judge if you are a defendant.

A trial court judge in Tennessee's Middle District can expect to
handle more than 60 criminal cases a year. Every person Puryear sends
to prison is a potential money-maker for his former employer, which
contracts with the federal government to manage 15 detention
facilities, and also holds federal prisoners in other CCA
institutions that house state and local prisoners when the need
arises, according to Steve Owen, the company's director of marketing
and communications. The number of inmates coming from Tennessee may
be relatively small, but still, it seems fair to ask whether
Puryear's conflict of interest runs so deep that he might have to
recuse himself from criminal cases entirely.

Thus far, Puryear has largely escaped media scrutiny, as the activist
groups that monitor the federal courts tend to focus mostly on
appellate courts and the occasional Supreme Court battle rather than
on trial court nominees. Puryear's CV also doesn't signal fights on
many of the hot-button social issues that usually set off a
confirmation battle. He doesn't sound—or look—like Robert Bork. He's
young, patrician, a model member of the exclusive Belle Meade Country
Club, and director of the Antiques & Garden Show of Nashville. But
for his deep voice he could be Niles on "Frasier." Nonetheless,
Puryear might be in for an unexpected fight, due in part to his
decision to publicly dis jailhouse lawyers.

Alex Friedmann was one of those jailhouse lawyers. He spent six years
inside one of the CCA's prisons in Tennessee for attempted murder and
armed robbery. Friedmann actually sued the CCA while incarcerated for
retaliating against him for his comments to a reporter for The
Nation. Representing himself, he took another case all the way to a
jury trial, where he mostly lost, though he won a default judgment
against a former unit manager. He also appealed a different case
against the state, over censorship, that went all the way to the
Sixth Circuit court of appeals where he won. "In that regard, I'm
more qualified than [Puryear] is," he observes, noting that Puryear
isn't even admitted to practice in the Sixth Circuit.

Now out of prison nine years, Friedmann is an editor for Prison Legal
News, which is how he first learned about Puryear's nomination. After
doing a little checking on him, Friedmann ran across Puryear's quote
about inmate litigation, which didn't sit too well with him, and he
set out to torpedo Puryear's nomination. As a former CCA inmate and a
board member of a Florida nonprofit group that opposes prison
privatization, Friedmann readily admits that he's not a disinterested
party in the nomination battle. Nonetheless, his political instincts
are sound. He is cobbling together a coalition to oppose Puryear's
nomination, including the American Federal State and Municipal
Employees Union, which opposes private prisons for their anti-labor
positions. Friedmann's currently at work trying to enlist the real
powerhouse of liberal judicial activists to join the coalition:
women's groups.

Friedmann has compiled stats from the federal court docket on the
CCA's lawsuit history in order to highlight the potential conflicts
of interest Puryear might face, and he picked apart Puryear's resume
and his responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questions last
week. For instance, when pressed on his view of criminal defendants
and prison inmates, Puryear pointed to his service as a commissioner
on the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission. Skeptical,
Friedmann checked out Puryear's attendance record with the
commission. He says the commission held eight public hearings between
2005 and 2007—and Puryear missed at least four of them. "If the
gentleman does have a genuine concern about inmates, why did he miss
half the meetings?" he asks.

Friedmann is also raising significant questions about Puryear's
response to questions about the death of a female inmate at the CCA's
facility in Nashville. The medical examiner ruled that 34-year-old
Estelle Richardson was beaten to death while in the company's
custody. She suffered a skull fracture, broken ribs, and liver
damage. Prosecutors indicted four CCA guards in 2005, but later
dropped the charges after being unable to determine the time of
death. So far, no one has been held responsible for Richardson's
death, although the CCA settled a private lawsuit filed by her family.

When Sen. Feinstein asked Puryear about the case, Puryear disputed
the medical examiner's findings and claimed that Richardson's death
might not have been a homicide at all. He suggested that the broken
ribs and liver injury may have been caused by CPR. It's "common" for
people to suffer such injuries from CPR, Puryear said, to which a
dumbfounded Feinstein exclaimed, "Common?" Apparently not satisfied
with Puryear's answers, Feinstein asked him to provide the committee
with further written information about the case.

Meanwhile, after the hearing, Friedmann called the Tennessee medical
examiner who worked the case, who he says reaffirmed the original
finding that Robinson's death was a homicide and that there was
nothing to suggest her injuries were caused by resuscitation efforts.
Friedmann also spoke with the lawyers who represented Richardson's
family and he says that they told him that the CCA never raised CPR
injuries as a defense in the litigation. Puryear's comments to the
committee, says Freidmann, are "not supported by the medical record,"
which makes him skeptical about Puryear's judgment as a lawyer—and
his credibility.

Friedmann seems to recognize that prison inmates are not the stuff of
judicial confirmation fights, so he has also homed in on another
issue that might provide more traction, not to mention the interest
of powerful women's groups: Puryear's country club.

The tony Belle Meade Country Club in Nashville is so exclusive that
you have to be a member just to access its website. It didn’t admit a
single black member until 1994, a racist history so potent that even
Puryear's mentor, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, quit the
club in 1993 when he first ran for office. While Belle Meade admits
women, Friedmann has heard that it still won't give "lady members"
voting rights. (Troy Cunningham, the controller of the club for the
past 17 years, wouldn’t respond to questions about women's voting
rights, saying that "all questions flow through the members," meaning
that someone will have to put the question to Puryear himself.) But
if Friedmann can stir up controversy over Puryear's country club
membership, he might actually have a shot at scuttling his nomination.

Stephanie Mencimer is a reporter in Mother Jones' Washington, D.C.,
bureau and the author of Blocking the Courthouse Door: How the
Republican Party and Its Corporate Allies Are Taking Away Your Right
to Sue (Free Press, 2006).

Ex-Inmate Crusades Against Judge Nominee

By TRAVIS LOLLER Associated Press Writer
© 2008 The Associated Press
Feb. 21, 2008, 2:33AM http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5558158.html

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A private prison company executive nominated to
become a federal judge has run into a determined opponent _ a former
inmate.

President Bush in June nominated Gustavus A. Puryear IV, chief lawyer
with Corrections Corporation of America, to become a U.S. district
judge in Nashville.

That led Alex Friedmann, who spent six years at the company's prison
in Clifton, Tenn., to investigate Puryear's qualifications. He looked
up every case where Puryear was listed on the docket as counsel.

The prisoner-turned-inmate advocate found only five instances where
Puryear was the attorney of record. By his count and Puryear's, the
judicial nominee has been involved in only two federal court trials
during his career.

That's just one more case than Friedmann himself has handled in
federal court.

Convinced that the well-connected Puryear was unqualified to be a
federal judge and might face a conflict of interest overseeing
litigation involving his former employer, Friedmann began a public
relations campaign against the nomination that led all the way to the
Senate.

He formed the group Tennesseans Against Puryear and enlisted the help
of the liberal Washington-based Alliance for Justice and the American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, both of which
sent letters opposing the appointment.

Puryear, a 1993 graduate of the University of North Carolina law
school, didn't respond to several phone and e-mail requests left at
his home and office for an interview with The Associated Press.

At a Feb. 12 hearing of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Diane
Feinstein, D-Calif., questioned Puryear about several issues
originally raised by Friedmann and the nonprofit Private Corrections
Institute, a group opposing private prisons that Friedmann helps run.

Puryear told the Senate committee he already was selling off his
stock in the company, according to reports in The Tennessean
newspaper. He owned CCA shares valued at just under $1.3 million as
of Feb. 1, according to Lionshares.com, an online database of stock
ownership. He also pledged to recuse himself from cases involving CCA
even after he no longer holds a financial interest.

The committee also questioned Puryear about whether the volume of
lawsuits against Nashville-based CCA _ the nation's largest for-
profit private prison company _ would burden other judges who would
have to hear the cases when Puryear recused himself. Puryear said it
would not be a significant burden.

Friedmann's campaign against Puryear continues. He plans to send a
letter to the Committee on the Judiciary pointing out what he
contends are inaccuracies in Puryear's answers.

The two men have never met. Although Friedmann learned of the
nomination because he keeps tabs on CCA, he insists his crusade is
based on Puryear's lack of qualification and not because he's a CCA
executive.

Friedmann sued CCA and several employees in 1996 while incarcerated
for six years for armed robbery. Serving as his own lawyer, Friedmann
eventually won a $6,000 judgment against a former prison unit manager
for a civil rights violation.

Puryear's legal resume includes significant political work _ serving
as counsel to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and junior
counsel during the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
investigation of campaign finance abuse led by former Sen. Fred
Thompson. He also was a debate adviser for Dick Cheney in 2000.

Stefanie Lindquist, an associate professor of political science and
law at Vanderbilt University, said courtroom experience is good but
not essential for federal judge nominees.

She sees more significance in the American Bar Association rating of
Puryear as "qualified," instead of "well qualified" to be a judge. "A
`qualified' rating is relatively weak. That's going to hurt him,"
Lindquist said.

Lindquist said Friedmann's efforts are unusual for even temporarily
disrupting what should be a routine confirmation. There are about 180
Bush nominations pending as the administration and Democratic-
controlled Senate tangle over some sharply contested nominees.

Of the Puryear nomination, Lindquist said: "If there are other, more
controversial nominees, this might slide through as a compromise."

On the Net:

Tennesseans Against Gus Puryear: http://www.againstpuryear.org