by David Reutter
The Supreme Court of Alabama held that prison officials acted under protection of state-agent immunity and that a prisoner did not show any facts exempting either from liability. The court granted mandamus and ordered the trial court to enter a summary judgment in favor of the defendants. ...
by David Reutter
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the certification of two subclasses in litigation alleging that GEO Group violated federal forced labor and Colorado unjust enrichment laws at its Aurora, Colorado, immigrant detention center.
The complaint alleged GEO implemented two programs that are at the heart of ...
by David M. Reutter
Todd L. Caveness, 40, had a long history of bipolar disorder, anxiety attacks and paranoia when he was booked into North Carolina’s Wilson County Jail on attempted murder charges in early 2016. When he began to believe his food was poisoned and stopped eating, he lost ...
by David M. Reutter
When prisoners tire of the same fare they are given to eat, day after day, they become creative to make it more palatable. A dozen pre-trial detainees at the Walker County Jail (WCJ) in Alabama, for example, found a new way to use peanut butter – ...
by David M. Reutter
On September 1, 2017, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals revived civil rights claims brought by four Alabama death row prisoners. Their lawsuits challenged the state’s current three-drug execution protocol, arguing that the use of midazolam as the first drug would subject them to “intolerable pain” ...
by David M. Reutter
Alleging a “culture of cover-up and excessive force,” the MacArthur Justice Center and the Advocacy Center of Louisiana (ACL) filed a class-action lawsuit in February 2018 against officials at the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (LDPSC) and the David Wade Correctional Center (DWCC).
The ...
by David M. Reutter
A “dirty staff gang” of corrupt employees in North Carolina’s prison system is circumventing security measures by smuggling contraband that creates dangers not only for prisoners and staff members, but also for people in the community who have been the victims of criminal plots.
North Carolina ...
by David M. Reutter
Three lawsuits, filed in June and July 2017, allege corrections officials ignored an outbreak of scabies at the Metro-Davidson County Detention Facility (MDCDF) in Nashville, Tennessee. Affecting 89 prisoners, the outbreak also spread to at least 17 members of the jail staff and 16 courthouse workers ...
by David M. Reutter
On June 13, 2017, a pair of Georgia prisoners being transported from the Baldwin State Prison near Milledgeville to the state’s Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson breached a partition on the prison bus. Within seconds they overpowered and disarmed two transport guards before killing them. ...
by David M. Reutter
In July 2017, Disability Rights Florida, the state’s federally-funded Protection and Advocacy organization that advocates for disabled individuals, settled a historic lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections over the FDOC’s systematic failure to comply with federal measures intended to protect prisoners with physical disabilities.
The ...
