by David M. Reutter
Citing Alabama’s “bad track record of botched executions,” death row prisoner David P. Wilson, 41, filed a civil rights action on February 15, 2024, alleging that the state’s intended use of nitrogen hypoxia to execute him constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Struggling to obtain necessary drugs ...
by David M. Reutter
A dustup between Republican politicians landed in Florida’s Charlotte County Circuit Court on February 15, 2024, when presiding Judge Lisa Porter reserved ruling on disclosure of grand jury proceedings that resulted in no indictments against state prison guards in the 2014 beating death of prisoner Matthew ...
by David M. Reutter
Alaska is a small state with enormous natural resources. The native people, who largely subsist off the land, enrich its culture. The beauty of its landscape draws millions of tourists annually. Yet behind the sheen of natural and cultural richness lies a deadly and degrading ...
by David M. Reutter
On December 6, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed denial of qualified immunity (QI) to defendant officials with Pennsylvania’s Harrisburg Police Department (HPD) and the contracted medical provider for Dauphin County Booking Center (DCBC), PrimeCare Medical, in a suit accusing ...
by David M. Reutter
In a decision issued on December 11, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said that the claim of a federal prisoner in Washington allegedly denied treatment for Hepatitis C did not require an extension of the government’s financial liability for violating ...
by David Reutter
On April 26, 2024, a long legal battle over his delayed Hepatitis C (HCV) treatment netted Georgia prisoner Ricky Johnson just over $15,000 from Defendant state prison officials and medical personnel. As PLN has reported, many prison systems have delayed HCV care due to the high ...
by David M. Reutter
In a suit filed in Kansas state court on July 31, 2023, former detainee Joshua Braddy accused private prison profiteer CoreCivic of negligence that resulted in his stabbing at Leavenworth Detention Center (LDC), a now-shuttered lockup formerly operated for the federal government.
Before it closed ...
by David M. Reutter
On December 18, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the grant of summary judgment to Defendant officials of Cook County in a civil rights action alleging that surveillance cameras aimed at toilet areas in county courthouse holding cells violated detainees’ ...
by David M. Reutter
On December 13, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado denied summary judgment to a jail guard who allegedly failed to protect a pretrial detainee from assault by another detainee. But the Court dismissed a municipal liability claim against Colorado’s Chaffee County, ...
by David M. Reutter
The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) marked a critical step in condemning and curbing sexual assault and harassment in jails and prisons. Sadly, rape, groping and sexual harassment still occur regularly in America’s gulags, with guards often the perpetrators. Now a new provision in U.S. ...
