California prison mental health care workers are practicing “defensive medicine” and overmedicating their patients with psychotropic medications. Fear of triggering a lawsuit or federal court order drives the practice, admits a former top prison official.
An Associated Press report found spending on psychotropic drugs in California prisons greatly exceeds that ...
The City of San Francisco negotiated a new contract with its food vendor, Aramark Correction Services, to provide a “heart-healthy menu” for prisoners at the San Francisco County Jail (SFCJ). The new fare, hopefully, will diminish the need for prisoners to prepare meals from the snack food laden jail commissary. ...
by David M. Reutter and Rod L. Bower
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy David “Lee” Baca faces up to six months in prison after pleading guilty on February 10, 2016 to charges that he lied to federal investigators in an attempt to cover up a conspiracy to thwart an FBI probe into brutality and excessive use of force by deputies in the county’s sprawling jail system.
In a plea agreement filed in federal court, Baca admitted to twice lying about his involvement in hiding a prisoner-turned-informant from FBI agents. In fact, according to the agreement, Baca ordered the prisoner, Anthony Brown, to be moved from facility to facility under different names, and placed then-Undersheriff Paul Tanaka in charge of executing that plan, dubbed “Operation Pandora’s Box.”
Baca also acknowledged that he lied when he told investigators he was unaware that his subordinates planned to contact FBI Special Agent Leah Marx at her home. Deputies confronted Marx and, in an effort to intimidate her, falsely threatened her with arrest. Baca admitted that he directed the deputies to approach Marx, telling them they should “do everything but put handcuffs” on her, according to his plea agreement.
The guilty plea marks a stunning ...
The City of Chicago paid $7,625,000 to settle a civil rights action brought by a former prisoner who was wrongfully convicted of rape and exonerated by DNA evidence.
Dean Cage was 27 years old when he was arrested for the November 1994 rape of a 15-year-old girl as she walked ...
A settlement agreement was reached in a class-action lawsuit challenging a postcard-only mail policy at Kansas’ Wyandotte County Adult Detention Center (WCADC), while a federal district court awarded damages to a pro se prisoner challenging a similar policy at a jail in Johnson County.
The settlement involving WCADC provides that ...
Officials in Lorain County, Ohio have settled a lawsuit stemming from a pretrial detainee’s suicide death.
When police arrived at Cheryl Sweeney’s home on May 26, 2012 because her husband had passed away, they arrested her on an outstanding warrant for failure to pay fines. During the booking process at ...
A father and son have been charged with misconduct and theft for inappropriate conduct with prisoners and double-billing supervision over a work crew from a Tennessee jail.
According to Police Chief Mark Sirois, the Johnson City Police Department began an internal investigation in October 2012 involving prisoner work details. The ...
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed as moot an appeal by the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) that challenged a preliminary injunction regulating its provision of kosher meals to prisoners. The appellate court also vacated orders by the district court that clarified its injunction.
As previously reported in PLN, ...
A prisoner who was subjected to excessive force and denied due process at the Pike County Detention Center in Murfreesboro, Arkansas received $501 plus court costs following a summary judgment order and settlement agreement.
Prisoner Alan C. Onstad was caught by jail guard Jack Naron passing love notes to female ...
The last remaining member of the “Angola 3” – believed to have served the longest term in solitary confinement in the United States – was released from prison after almost 44 years, while consistently maintaining his innocence in the 1972 murder of a guard at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in ...
