by David M. Reutter
On February 3, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment to Virginia prison officials, in a civil rights complaint by a state prisoner alleging a guard falsely accused him of sexual harassment and supervisors refused ...
by David M. Reutter
On January 30, 2023, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rebuffed Georgia Department of Corrections (DOC) officials who wanted to execute a condemned prisoner by lethal injection. Instead, the Court found that Michael Wade Nance offered a plausible ...
by David M. Reutter
On March 28, 2023, the CaliforniaThird District Court of Appeals ordered a lower court to recalculate a prisoner’s custody credits for time spent in a facility to bring the defendant back to competency. The Court’s ruling follows one almost a year earlier by the state Court ...
by David Reutter
On January 31, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia approved a $1.325 million settlement in a suit brought by the estate of Darryl Terrell Becton against the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office and its private healthcare contractor at the Arlington County Detention Facility ...
by David M. Reutter
On January 12, 2023, California’s Sixth District Court of Appeal concluded that attorney-client privilege did not apply to a state prisoner’s “kites,” even when included in an envelope addressed to his attorney. Written messages sent in violation of jail rules, the kites were ordered turned over ...
by David Reutter
An Arizona prisoner’s civil rights claim is headed to trial in June 2023, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated it, saying his prison’s policy on material he is allowed cannot be applied inconsistently without trampling his First Amendment liberties.
The suit was ...
by David M. Reutter
In a decision reached on August 10,2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit stayed the hand that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had reached into the pocket of a federal prisoner in Missouri. Though ultimately Anthony Robinson lost nearly all of the ...
by David M. Reutter
On December 14, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit took up the latest in a “slew” of cases by Illinois prisoners alleging they are “housed like cattle” at Menard Correctional Center (MCC), “where cells meant for one person are routinely used to ...
by David M. Reutter
The Supreme Court of Ohio issued a writ of mandamus to a state prisoner on December 15, 2022, awarding $3,000 in statutory damages for records he was denied in violation of the state Public Records Act (PRA) by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC). ...
by David M. Reutter
On December 16, 2022, a jury in federal court for the District of Colorado awarded $3.5 million to state prisoner Jason Brooks, whose complaint alleged simply that the “offer of adult diapers was not a reasonable accommodation” of his disability by the state Department of Corrections ...
