{"id":25240,"date":"2019-03-04T17:27:08","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T23:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25240"},"modified":"2019-03-04T17:27:08","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T23:27:08","slug":"bill-would-guarantee-free-communication-for-inmates-attorneys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25240","title":{"rendered":"Bill would guarantee free communication for inmates, attorneys"},"content":{"rendered":"

An inmate would be guaranteed access to his or her attorney under a bill advanced from general file March 4.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. John McCollister<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB443, introduced by Omaha Sen. John McCollister, would require that any communication between an inmate and attorney through telephone or videoconferencing be provided without charge to the inmate.<\/p>\n

The bill also would prohibit recording of the communication by the correctional institution or a law enforcement agency.<\/p>\n

Paying for phone calls can be a financial hardship for inmates in state correctional facilities, McCollister said, many of whom are indigent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would allow for meaningful telephone access between inmates and their attorneys,\u201d he said. \u201cAdditionally, it would reduce attorney travel time and in-person meeting time with clients, which saves money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers supported the bill. Conversations between attorneys and their clients already are protected, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn attorney should not have to travel long distances to talk to the client when a telephone call would [suffice],\u201d Chambers said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon opposed the bill, saying it would add unnecessary pressure to an already overburdened state agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, the state [penitentiary] and the Department of Correctional Services is struggling to meet their requirements,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure we\u2019re helping them by putting an additional task on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senators advanced the bill to select file on a 28-11 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An inmate would be guaranteed access to his or her attorney under a bill advanced from general file March 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[156],"class_list":["post-25240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-john-mccollister"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25241,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25240\/revisions\/25241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}