by David M. Reutter
Tennessee prison officials “turn a blind eye” to the medical needs of prisoners infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), a class-action lawsuit filed in July 2016 alleges. While it is likely that almost half of all Tennessee state prisoners have the disease, prison officials cite ...
by David M. Reutter
In September 2015, a Georgia prison doctor was fired for lying on his employment application. The misrepresentations were uncovered earlier that year during an investigation by the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) into the deaths of nine female prisoners under the doctor’s care. He was cited in ...
by David Reutter
A Michigan state district court judge was ordered to end a “pay or stay” policy that he used to toss poor defendants in jail for their inability to pay fines, fees and court costs.
The ACLU of Michigan assigned interns and fellows to watch the court proceedings ...
by David Reutter
In finding the treatment of South Carolina’s prisoners with “serious mental illness” is unconstitutional Judge J. Michael Baxley said that the case is “the most troubling” of those he has seen in more than 14 years on the bench.
At issue was a class action lawsuit brought ...
by David M. Reutter
As the lead-tainted water crisis in Flint, Michigan developed in 2015 and 2016, detainees held at the Genesee County Jail (GCJ) were told the water they drank, cooked with and bathed in was safe. [See: PLN, March 2016, p.22]. That lie was the subject of a ...
by David M. Reutter
A Michigan state district court judge was ordered to end a “pay or stay” policy that he used to toss poor defendants in jail for their inability to pay fines, fees and court costs.
The ACLU of Michigan assigned interns and fellows to watch the court ...
by David M. Reutter
By an executive order signed on April 22, 2016, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe restored the voting rights of more than 206,000 convicted felons. The order not only allowed former prisoners the right to vote in the November 2016 election, it also let them run for public ...
by David M. Reutter
About 130 people have been arrested following a joint two-year investigation by the FBI and the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDOC). Indictments for 75 of the arrestees were announced in September 2015; another 46 indictments, all involving current or former prison employees, were reported in February ...
by David M. Reutter
The Missouri Department of Corrections ran afoul of the state’s public records laws when it tried to withhold its source of propofol, a lethal injection drug, a state court judge ruled. That’s when the drug’s supplier found out how it was being used – and demanded ...
by David M. Reutter
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has ended its investigation into the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections’ (PDOC) use of solitary confinement for prisoners with serious mental illness or intellectual disabilities (SMI/ID).
PLN reported the January 5, 2015 settlement of that investigation after the DOJ found prison ...
