by David M. Reutter
The political atmosphere surrounding criminal justice reform features strong rhetoric on both sides. Those who pontificate the “get-tough-on-crime” culture argue for increasing criminal sanctions and imposing punishment upon prisoners. On the other side are criminal justice reform advocates who push for a second chance by changing ...
by David M. Reutter
On March 3, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana only partly granted a motion for summary judgment filed by prison medical profiteer Wexford Health Sources, Inc. and its employees in a state prisoner’s civil rights action over a nearly three-year delay ...
by David M. Reutter
A lawsuit filed in federal court for the Western District of Arkansas on January 13, 2023, makes a stunning claim: That a man was left to starve to death in jail because he couldn’t afford bail.
Larry Eugene Price, Jr., 50, was suffering an acute mental ...
by David M. Reutter
As PLN previously reported, a man arrested and taken to jail in California’s San Bernardino County in March 2018 ended up in a hospital eight days later in critical condition, suffering severe dehydration, sepsis, and renal failure. Perry Belden then went into cardiac arrest and was ...
by David M. Reutter
After a jury in the federal court for the Northern District of California awarded $504,000 in compensatory damages in the excessive-force case he brought against the San Francisco Jail, a former pretrial detainee was awarded another $14,034.31 in legal costs on November 28, 2022, followed by ...
by David M. Reutter
On December 14, 2022, the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) successfully beat back a challenge to use of solitary confinement in its prisons, when prisoner/plaintiffs stipulated to dismissal of their claims. Not content with that victory, apparently, DOC then issued a press release on January 12, ...
by David M. Reutter
On January 17, 2023, the last of four former Hawaii prison guards convicted of beating a state prisoner was sentenced to federal prison. The sentences ranged from one to 12 years. Three of the guards – Jason Tagaloa, 31, Craig Pinkney, 38, and Jonathan Taum, 50 – were convicted by a federal jury in July 2022 of assaulting the prisoner in June 2015 at the Hawaii Community Correctional Center; they also were convicted of trying to cover up the crime by submitting false reports between June 2015 and December 2016.
The prisoner, Chawn Kaili, suffered a broken jaw, nose, and eye socket from the two-minute beating in a prison recreation yard. Surveillance video captured Kaili being escorted across the recreation yard by one guard, who was then joined by the other three. Though the prisoner was nonviolent, they took him to the ground and beat him.
Tagaloa “delivered the most vicious punches and kicks to the victim’s head,” prosecutors said. Pinkney held the prisoner down as Tagola delivered the beating. Prosecutors said Taum supervised the beating and orchestrated the conspiracy to cover it up.
The fourth guard, Jordan DeMattos, 31, pleaded guilty in December 2020 and ...
by David M. Reutter
In November 2022, a $1 million settlement was reached in a lawsuit filed by the estate of a 23-year-old indigenous woman who committed suicide at Washington’s Fork City Jail in 2019. Kimberly Bender took her own life following weeks of alleged sexual harassment by guard John Russell Gray.
The October 2021 federal civil rights complaint alleged that Bender, a Quileute tribal member, had a history of criminal offenses as well as mental health issues, including depression and past suicide attempts. Jail officials knew or should have known that history, the complaint continued, because Bender was in and out of the jail between July and December 2019.
The complaint alleged that while Bender was locked up in July 2019, Gray sexually harassed her with verbal comments, as well as committing sexual misconduct towards two other prisoners – all part of a quartet of victims he was convicted of sexually assaulting, receiving a 20-month prison term in May 2021.
The jail had hired Gray in April 2019, after he was removed in 2018 from Clallam Bay Corrections Center (CBCC) by the state Department of Corrections for making inappropriate sexual comments during Prison Rape Elimination Act training.
Bender was ...
by David M. Reutter
On February 2, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas dismissed a state prisoner’s habeas corpus petition challenging denial of his parole because he did not have approved sex offender housing. While bad news for him, the decision is instructive for any prisoner facing housing restrictions when paroled or on probation.
Charles Isaac Wilson, Jr., is serving a 40-year sentence for a 2010 conviction for delivery of cocaine. In November 2021, the state Parole Board recommended he be transferred from the state Department of Corrections (DOC) to supervision of the state Division of Community Correction (ACC). But that transfer hit a snag because Wilson was convicted in 1983 of rape, which classifies him as a Level 3 sex offender. A transfer to ACC required Wilson to (1) register as a sex offender and (2) stay away from schools and parks.
According to DOC Director Dexter Payne, none of ACC’s approved transitional housing facilities had an available bed for a Level 3 sex offender at that time. There were no family members or friends willing to provide housing for Wilson. He provided two parolee plans to for living arrangements outside transitional housing, but ...
by David M. Reutter
The Oregon Court of Appeals on November 23, 2022, held that the state Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision exceeded its statutory authority when it adopted a rule that excludes prisoners convicted of aggravated murder – including those for whom an initial parole release date has been set – from personal review eligibility.
Before the Court was a petition filed by Oregon prisoner Jacob Barrett that challenged the validity of the Board’s new rule, OAR 255-040-0005(5). That rule provided, in relevant part, that “inmates sentenced for aggravated murder … are not subject to personal reviews.”
The Court’s opinion began with background on aggravated murder sentencing. It noted that there are only three sentencing options for a conviction of aggravated murder: (1) life imprisonment; (2) life imprisonment without the possibility of release or parole; or (3) death.
If a defendant is sentenced to life imprisonment, the trial court will order imprisonment “for a minimum of 30 years without possibility of parole or release to post-prison supervision … and without the possibility of release on work release or any form of temporary leave or employment at a forest or work camp.”
After completing that minimum three-decade period, the ...
