by David M. Reutter
A lawsuit filed in federal court for the Western District of Arkansas on January 13, 2023, makes a stunning claim: That a man was left to starve to death in jail because he couldn’t afford bail.
Larry Eugene Price, Jr.,50, was suffering an acute mental health ...
by David M. Reutter
On April 13, 2023, the Supreme Court of Florida directed its Clerk to “reject any future pleadings or other requests for relief” submitted by state prisoner Daryl A. Sanders, “unless such filings are signed by a member in good standing of The Florida Bar.”
Sanders is ...
by David M. Reutter
On December 15, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed denial of qualified immunity (QI) to Illinois jail guards who relied upon a nurse’s claim that a detainee was faking his medical condition, which then proved fatal. The estate of Michael Carter, ...
by David M. Reutter
On May 20, 2021, a Florida jury awarded $1.4 million to Bradford County Jail guard Clinton Jenkins, 53. The jury’s award was based on its finding that the truck driver who crashed into Jenkin’s jail transport was negligent and liable for the crash and Jenkins’ significant ...
by David Reutter
On March 13, 2023, the federal court for the Southern District of Georgia denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a guard for private prison giant CoreCivic, alleging she was unconstitutionally strip-searched at Wheeler Correctional Facility (WCF).
“Though Defendants attempt to parse the definition ...
by David Reutter
A California Superior Court on December 9, 2022, preliminarily approved a $155 million settlement for about 10,000 current and retired supervising state prison guards in a long-running lawsuit alleging the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) failed to pay supervisors for time worked pre- and post-shift. ...
by David M. Reutter
A settlement approved by the federal court for the Eastern District of California on January 16, 2024, recalls an all-too familiar jail story. A wheelchair-bound detainee named Gregory Cantu was denied anti-seizure medication after arriving at Kings County Jail in Hanford on a probation violation. Despite ...
by David M. Reutter
On January 16, 2024, Maine’s Superior Court for Kennebec County ordered state officials to pay $130,600.02 in attorney fees and legal costs to PLN’s publisher, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), after making a rare finding that the officials exercised bad faith in repeatedly denying the ...
David M. Reutter
On April 6, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of a suit filed by a pretrial detainee challenging the contraband policy at the Cook County Jail (CCJ) in Chicago, after guards took and destroyed approximately 30 of his books.
The lawsuit ...
by David M. Reutter
On August 16, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a Michigan prisoner’s lawsuit with an outrageous-sounding opinion that a guard “may have violated a prison use-of-force policy or committed a state-law tort,” yet that “does not necessarily” mean there ...
