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 ...
by David M. Reutter
On September 15, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a New York prisoner was excused from exhausting administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e. Why? Because his transfer to mental health confinement ...
by David M. Reutter
On September 16, 2022, in an important decision for Alabama prisoners on work-release programs, the state Supreme Court held that “willful escape” from such a program “is punishable under the escape statutes in the Alabama Criminal Code.” And it found that the Code implicitly repealed provisions ...
by David M. Reutter
On September 16, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that forcing a Muslim prisoner “to submit to cross-sex strip searches” by a transgender Wisconsin guard “substantially burdens his religious exercise.” The case was then remanded to the district court with instructions ...
by David M. Reutter
On August 4, 2022, nearly 40 years after the brutal 1983 murder of 19-year-old Barbara Grams in Tampa, the indictments of two men for the crime were announced by Hillsborough County District Attorney (DA) Andrew Warren. The news highlighted the grave injustice done to 56-year-old Robert ...
by David M. Reutter
On November 28, 2022, the State of Alabama entered a settlement with condemned prisoner Alan Eugene Miller, agreeing to refrain from further attempts to execute him by means of lethal injection. It further agreed that any future effort to execute Miller will employ his chosen method: ...
by David M. Reutter
On November 11, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of an Alabama prisoner’s civil rights action that alleged overlong delays in treatment for hernias and post-surgery complications. The case provides a lesson in the proper preparation of affidavits to support ...
by David M. Reutter
The Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) agreed on March 25, 2022, to pay $350,000 to resolve a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the estate of murdered prisoner Anthony Vidal.
The lawsuit was filed after Vidal was killed by his cellmate, Torrin Blue, on March 11, 2016, ...
by David M. Reutter
On August 17, 2022, Lager George Reid, 26, was admitted to Folsom State Prison, after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of his cellmate at the jail in California’s San Bernardino County. Reid was being held at the county’s West Valley Detention Center (WVDC) ...
