-- Suits By Harry Franklin, An Inmate In The Oregon State Penitentiary

* Franklin claimed he was denied daily half-hour out-of-cell walks. The judge found this claim surprising, because in other filings Franklin alleged he was crippled.
* He claimed prison guards abridged his "right to be supplied" with T-shirts, a claim which had previously been dismissed.
* He claimed he did not receive "some unspecified medical treatment because an officer neglected to wake him from his afternoon nap," causing him "mental frustration," which the judge learned meant "that someone got his dander up."
* Franklin sued prison guards who he alleged "wear clopping heels on their boots, which causes plaintiff to feel he's in a Natsy [sic] prison camp."
* He asserted that his right to free speech was violated because prison staff discliplined him "for commenting on a guard's allegedly out-of-wedlock birth."
* He sought $3 million in damages for "mental frustration" he suffered when a Portland television station allegedly misidentified a "14 wheeler tractor and trailer rig" as an "18 wheeler."
* Franklin launched constitutional challenges to Oregon statutes which denied felons the ability to be candidates for public office or to vote during their incarceration.
* Franklin brought up some Oregon history in one of his claims. In 1923, the D'Autermont boys robbed a train in the Sikiyou Mountains, killing several railroadmen. According to Franklin, since the incident, trains blew their whistles as they pass the penitentiary in the early morning hours, violating his "right to public piece [sic]." The judge found that "Even assuming the railroads do carry on such a heinous practice, it would not violate one of Franklin's federally protected rights."
* He sued "Ronal Regan and his constiuants [sic]" for $8.9 million for "violation of undue restraint" in connection with an Oregon seatbelt law. he believed the law was underinclusive because it did not apply to bicycles and horses as well as cars.
* He complained that he lost sleep on three occasions because the penitentiary's steam heater pipes snap and pop, and that he endured "Harassment by Water" because the prison authority's over-watering of the prison yard in the summer made it difficult for him to find a dry place to lie down.
* He claimed the pentitentiary's cleanliness rules violated his "constitutional right to accumulate an unlimited number of newspaper clippings."
* Franklin was also a reformer, suing Oregon's governor, attorney general, legislators, and judges for failing "to pass Legislation which would keep our System such as The Courts, &/or Jails from being so corrupt."
* He complained that the penitentiary food service bakes desserts in aluminum rather than stainless steel pans, and that he could not eat from aluminum pans because the "scrapings" from the pans would "settle in [his] Human Joints."