by David M. Reutter
On September 7, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed denial of qualified immunity (QI) to officials at Utah’s Unitah County Jail in a lawsuit accusing them of deliberate indifference in a detainee’s death from complications related to alcohol withdrawal.
Coby Lee ...
by David M. Reutter
Some recreation was suspended at Nevada’s Southern Desert Correctional Center [SDCC] after 20 prisoners got into a brawl on October 10, 2022. The violence carried echoes of a riot involving at least 40 prisoners on December 8, 2021.
Eight of those 40 were indicted on a ...
by David Reutter
On October 4, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit considered the question: When is cleanliness not next to godliness? In answer, the Court said that the Texas prison system’s rules for storage of a prisoner’s personal property may not be broken, even if ...
by David M. Reutter
On August 2, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed dismissal of an Indiana prisoner’s claim that he was wrongfully terminated from his job in the prison commissary when he missed work for a religious service he thought he had permission to ...
by David M. Reutter
On September 22, 2022, the Supreme Court of Illinois agreed with a former state prisoner that when the state sets conditions for release that he can’t afford, it is obliged to help him meet them as long as it retains him under its custody. In the ...
by David M. Reutter
On April 19, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the dismissal of a prisoner’s civil rights complaint, reviving his claims that North Carolina prison officials ignored a flesh-eating infection that left him seriously injured. In the process, the Court also laid ...
by Kevin Bliss and David M. Reutter
On July 14, 2022, in a case on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit agreed that a “result opposite” was dictated to the opinion it had issued in a malicious prosecution case the year ...
by David M. Reutter
On August 9, 2022, the Board of Commissioners (BOC) of Minnesota’s Ramsey County approved a payment of $1.445 million to settle a lawsuit alleging Black guards at the county lockup were segregated from the area where Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was being held after his ...
by David M. Reutter
On May 18, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania imposed sanctions for discovery abuse upon defendant state prison guards and their counsel, in a lawsuit alleging the guards employed unwarranted and excessive force upon prisoner Corey Bracey.
Bracey’s suit claimed that ...
by David M. Reutter
Contraband statistics obtained from the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) during pandemic lockdowns debunk officials’ theory that visitors and mail are the main source of smuggling into state prisons. Instead the August 2022 report says the numbers point to one source: staff members and guards.
From ...
