by David M. Reutter
On August 14, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida awarded a permanent injunction to state prisoner Owen D. Denson, a Muslim known as Abdul Hakeen Jahmal Naseer Shabazz, permitting him to “maintain an untrimmed beard” without being “subject to any disciplinary ...
by David M. Reutter
On August 24, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a district court’s orders granting California prisoners a pair of 12-month extensions to a Settlement Agreement reached in 2015 with the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to end the practice ...
by David M. Reutter
Back in June 2022, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) agreed to pay $40,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a prisoner repeatedly subjected to sexual assault by a guard at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Mariana, Florida. But the settlement with “Jane Doe” specifically ...
by David M. Reutter
A civil rights action filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on July 1, 2023, alleged that officials at Miami-Dade County’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center (TGKCC) were deliberately indifferent to the serious medical needs of pretrial detainee Randy Heath, whose death ...
On August 18, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for officials with the Nevada Department of Corrections (DOC) in a prisoner’s claim that it limited his access to courts. The Court’s ruling maintains a perfect score for prison officials facing such challenges across ...
by David M. Reutter
On August 8, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed dismissal of a claim alleging two guards at Florida’s Polk County Jail (PCJ) interfered with Ricky Lee Christmas’ First Amendment right to communicate freely and confidentially with his attorneys by forcing him ...
by David M. Reutter
In October 2023, an attorney representing the estate of an Ohio pretrial jail detainee who suffered a fatal seizure after her June 2018 incarceration said the parties had reached a $900,000 settlement agreement.
The announcement by R. Craig McLaughlin of Elk & Elk Co., LTD in ...
by David M. Reutter
Much has been made of the “food desert” where America’s poorest citizens live: inner-city ghettos and rural backwaters where no grocery store is found, forcing impoverished residents—most lacking a car—to shop for food in high-priced and poorly-stocked gas stations and convenience stores.
But prisons also house ...
by David M. Reutter
On April 5, 2023, a settlement was reached between the estate of a Virginia prisoner who died from untreated Hepatitis C and his physician with the state Department of Corrections (DOC). The agreement, which provided a $700,000 payout, followed a ruling by the U.S. Court of ...
by David M. Reutter
A $3 million settlement in the 2020 withdrawal death of Illinois pretrial detainee Elissa A. Lindhorst at the Madison County Jail was fully executed on May 10, 2023.
Lindhorst, 28, was another casualty of the opioid epidemic that has caught so many law enforcement and jail ...
