Deaf Inmate Loses Bid For Services In Delaware

Sussex Correctional Institution inmate loses bid for services.

DOVER, DE -- Delaware State News: A Deaf inmate’s appeal for equal accommodations under law while incarcerated was denied in Delaware Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Robert Ovens, held at Sussex Correctional Institution, challenged an earlier Superior Court ruling that prisons were not places of public accommodation, thus limiting his ability to communicate by telephone while incarcerated.

The Supreme Court found that a prison does not meet the core definition of a place of public accommodation as “any establishment which caters to or offers goods or services of facilities to, or solicits patronage from, the general public.

“The definition includes state agencies, local government agencies, and state-funded agencies performing public functions.”

Mr. Ovens was housed at SCI three separate times between May 12, 2010 and May 1, 2013, and filed a complaint with the Delaware Human Relations Commission regarding accommodations there.

According to court papers, the Commission held by a 2 to 1 vote that prisons did fall under the Delaware Equal Accommodations Law on Dec. 16, 2014 and subsequently awarded Ovens damages, attorney’s fees and other costs.

“The (Commission) majority found that the Equal Accommodations Law was violated because Owens had to wait additional periods of time to use the text telephone, and the DOC failed to provide him with an interpreter for his educational programs and his classification review,” the Supreme Court noted in the nine-page decision.

“The dissenting Commission member concluded that the Commission did not have subject matter jurisdiction over Ovens’ complaint because a prison is not a place of public accommodation.”

The decision was reversed in Superior Court, and Ovens then took the matter to Supreme Court.

While state-funded agencies fall under the law, the Supreme Court reasoned that “A prison like SCI is inherently different from a park or museum, in that a prison is not designed to solicit or cater to the general public for its entertainment and recreational value. …”

The DOC is a state agency, not designed to provide inmate goods and services to the public, the Supreme Court reasoned but exists to “provide for the treatment, rehabilitation, and restoration of offenders as useful, law-abiding citizens within the community,” according to Delaware Code.

Text telephone access

According to the Court, Owens “communicates primarily through American Sign Language and requires special accommodations, such as a text telephone device when making telephone calls.”

Owens alleged that access to the text telephone was either limited or denied, and he was required to “request permission to use the text telephone by submitting a counselor’s slip, while other inmates had free access to the telephones during their recreational periods.

“Additionally, Ovens alleged that the DOC and Warden (G.R.) Johnson did not accommodate his deafness when they failed to provide him with an interpreter for his anger management and substance abuse classes, and for his classification meetings.”

When the Commission first dismissed his complaint as not in its jurisdiction, Owens appealed to Superior Court, which remanded it for further explanation. Superior Court later ruled in Short v. Delaware that prisons were not places of public accommodation, followed by the Commission’s decision that the DOC violated Delaware Code.

SOURCE - Delaware State News

Alexander Graham Bell - Theft Of The Century

Alexander Graham Bell of history's most famous inventor, but shockingly his most famous invention was stolen.

WASHINGTON DC -- If you answered Alexander Graham Bell, then you, along with millions of people around the world have been misinformed. In 2002, even the US Congress succumbed to the nagging truth and “changed its mind” on the issue, according credit to the real inventor and declaring that the original telephone was in fact invented by Antonio Meucci, a penniless Italian who did not speak a word of English and could not afford to patent his discovery.

Alexander Graham Bell? He was just a successful patent applicant and some would say, THIEF.

According to the US Congress, Bell was a cunning opportunist who took all the credit for a more brilliant scientist’s work. The House of Representatives voted to recognise mechanical genius Antonio Meucci as the father of modern communications, following a protracted battle by historians and Italian Americans.

From Monopoly to the lightbulb, AllTime10s brings you 10 famous inventions stolen from other people.

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The real invented of the telephone, Meucci, born April 13, 1808, had been working in Cuba in the 1830s, developing methods for treating illnesses using electric shocks, when he discovered the ability of sound to travel through electrical impulses. He later moved to Staten Island to follow up on his discovery. In 1860 which was 16 years before Bell claimed to have invented the telephone Meucci demonstrated his teletrofono in New York, but could not afford the $250 required to register a patent.

Bell, who took an interest in Meucci’s invention, convinced him to share his research material. They shared a lab together and Bell had full access to Meucci’s materials. Bell made good and clever use of Meucci before coming up with his own “invention” and applying for a patent in his own name. Meucci duly protested, but lacking connections, was unable to convince anyone that Alexander Graham Bell had stolen his ideas. Under general patent laws, then and today, Bell should have credited Meucci and agreed to share royalties with him.

Beset with debt, Meucci could not afford the $10 fee for maintaining the patent caveat and temporarily gave up pursuit of Bell in 1874. Two years later, Bell, uncontested by Meucci, was granted ownership of the patent. Interestingly, another contender, Elisha Gray, had also submitted a patent for the telephone some hours before Bell, but due to a technicality, Bell was the registrant whose application won.

Meucci finally decided to sue Bell, charging him with fraud in the Supreme Court. The case looked rather promising for Meucci, but unfortunately, before any proceedings could begin, Meucci died on October 18, 1889.

In 2001, the United States Congress took the extraordinary decision of doing justice to Meucci, passing a resolution officially according recognition to Meucci as the real inventor of the telephone, stating that “if Meucci had been able to pay the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell.” The US Congress further stated that given all the facts of the patent disputes between Gray and Bell, under no terms should Alexander Graham Bell have been awarded the patent for the telephone by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1876. Alexander Graham Bell was posthumously stripped of his dubious honor as the inventor of the telephone.

“Justice” was finally served - well, sort of.

In effect, the Congressional resolution served only as a declaration and did not technically annul or modify the patent which Bell received in 1876. The resolution was also subsequently followed by another legislative declaration upholding Bell’s priority and his status as the inventor (patent holder) of the telephone.

Credit where credit is due:

Both Antonio Meucci and Elisha Gray should be credited with successfully inventing telephones in the United States before Alexander Graham Bell did so in 1876. Others who performed pioneering experimental work with electrical voice transmissions over wires included Thomas Edison, Innocenzo Manzetti, Charles Bourseul and Johann Philipp Reis. The telephone as we know it today, is largely based on improvements made by Thomas Edison on the original design which was not Bell’s but Meucci’s. SOURCE

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Sign Language Telephone - Documentary Film

Bell Labs project for the Deaf to communicate over telephone lines using American Sign Language.

This 1979 film examines a Bell Laboratory research project conducted by Kenneth Knowlton and Vivien Tartter. The team devised a way of using 27 points of light placed on an individual’s hands and face to allow the hearing impaired to use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate remotely.

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The goal was to find a way to take images of the points of light at each end of a conversation so the images “could be coded to the capacity of one telephone line.” Thus ASL, the primary language for most Deaf people, could be used to conduct conversations over standard telephone lines, without requiring any greater capacity than a regular phone call.

Knowlton was a prominent figure at Bell Labs for many years and is well represented in other videos on the AT&T Archive Channel. At the time this film was made Tartter was a linguist at Rutgers University and continues today as a professor at City College in New York.

In 1981, two years after this video, Tartter and Knowlton published a paper in the scientific journal Nature detailing their work and findings at Bell Labs. The article, “Perception of Sign-Language from an Array of 27 Moving Spots.” details the methods and results of the project, including a transcript of a sign language conversation conducted via television using their method. The paper concludes that the “demonstration suggests the possibility of developing a sign language telephone.” A New York Times article about the published piece soon followed and the subject drew attention in newspapers across the country.

While the system the team conceived was never developed into a final, usable technology, it is a fascinating step in the long procession of efforts to find ways for the Deaf to use the telephone for communicating, as in 2009 when AT&T received the TDI James C. Masters Promotion Award “for providing innovative products and services that address the needs of people who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing.“

SOURCE