Mother Jones magazine, known for its in-depth investigative reporting, was not content to merely skim the surface of the controversial private prison industry by viewing it from the outside. Prisons both public and private are notorious for their lack of transparency, typically justified in the name of “security” – which ...
On May 11, 2016, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court’s dismissal of a former prisoner’s civil rights action. Stephen Ted Koprowski, who was incarcerated at USP Ft. McCreary in Pine Knot, Kentucky, sued after he fell off a step ladder and injured his back while working ...
In 2007, prisoner Aaron Willey filed a pro se federal civil rights lawsuit against guards employed by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, alleging harassment, inadequate nutrition, theft of legal documents, malicious prosecution, false imprisonment and unsanitary conditions of confinement.
Willey claimed that after he refused ...
Iowa State District Court Judge Scott D. Rosenberg reversed and remanded a prisoner’s adverse classification hearing based upon the denial of his right to legal counsel.
Gary Pettit pleaded guilty to third-degree sexual abuse and kidnapping, and received consecutive 15-year prison terms. As part of his sentence he was required ...
On November 12, 2015, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a setback to death penalty abolitionists by reversing a grant of habeas corpus relief to a California prisoner who argued that the state’s post-conviction process in capital cases violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In ...
Private prison companies like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group earn hundreds of millions of dollars each year, averaging between $2,771 and $3,366 in profit per prisoner based on 2014 data. According to In the Public Interest (ITPI), a not-for-profit organization that opposes the privatization of public ...
Since the landmark Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963, criminal defendants who face incarceration have been guaranteed representation by an attorney if they cannot afford one. Gideon spurred most states and the federal government to form public defenders’ offices, which have since been overwhelmed due to limited ...
On May 25, 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of a federal prisoner’s petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, in which he complained of an abuse of discretion by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The appellate court held the BOP had abused ...
Of the more than 2.3 million people locked up in the United States at any given time, around 646,000 are held in county jails. Of that population, seven in ten are pretrial detainees who have not yet been found guilty, and according to a May 2016 report by the Prison ...
A New Jersey federal district court denied a motion to dismiss filed by prison telecom giant Global Tel*Link (GTL) and its subsidiary DSI-ITI in a class-action lawsuit alleging predatory practices in providing phone service to New Jersey state prisoners.
On September 8, 2014, Judge William J. Martini held that although ...
