by David M. Reutter
A civil rights action filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on July 1, 2023, alleged that officials at Miami-Dade County’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center (TGKCC) were deliberately indifferent to the serious medical needs of pretrial detainee Randy Heath, whose death ...
On August 18, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for officials with the Nevada Department of Corrections (DOC) in a prisoner’s claim that it limited his access to courts. The Court’s ruling maintains a perfect score for prison officials facing such challenges across ...
by David M. Reutter
On August 8, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed dismissal of a claim alleging two guards at Florida’s Polk County Jail (PCJ) interfered with Ricky Lee Christmas’ First Amendment right to communicate freely and confidentially with his attorneys by forcing him ...
by David M. Reutter
In October 2023, an attorney representing the estate of an Ohio pretrial jail detainee who suffered a fatal seizure after her June 2018 incarceration said the parties had reached a $900,000 settlement agreement.
The announcement by R. Craig McLaughlin of Elk & Elk Co., LTD in ...
by David M. Reutter
Much has been made of the “food desert” where America’s poorest citizens live: inner-city ghettos and rural backwaters where no grocery store is found, forcing impoverished residents—most lacking a car—to shop for food in high-priced and poorly-stocked gas stations and convenience stores.
But prisons also house ...
by David M. Reutter
On April 5, 2023, a settlement was reached between the estate of a Virginia prisoner who died from untreated Hepatitis C and his physician with the state Department of Corrections (DOC). The agreement, which provided a $700,000 payout, followed a ruling by the U.S. Court of ...
by David M. Reutter
A $3 million settlement in the 2020 withdrawal death of Illinois pretrial detainee Elissa A. Lindhorst at the Madison County Jail was fully executed on May 10, 2023.
Lindhorst, 28, was another casualty of the opioid epidemic that has caught so many law enforcement and jail ...
by David M. Reutter
On July 4, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed denial of qualified immunity (QI) to New York state prison officials who refused a prisoner’s judicially ordered enrollment in the state’s Shock Incarceration Program.
For a controlled substance offense, Michael Matzell was ...
by David M. Reutter
On July 3, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of a lawsuit challenging a federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) policy that caps a prisoner’s phone calls at a total of 300 minutes per month.
The suit was ...
by David M. Reutter
A July 10, 2023, report by Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) showed that measures of public safety after cash bail reform reflected “decreases or negligible increases in crime or re-arrest rates.” The report revealed that the type of pretrial reform did not matter, the results were the ...
