by Jacob Barret
On April 27, 2023, the Ways and Means Committee of New York’s Suffolk County legislature approved a $120,000 settlement with a former detainee assaulted by guards at the county lockup. In addition to the payout, the case is notable for the length of time it took for ...
by Jacob Barrett
Johnny Hincapie spent more than 25 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. On December 7, 2022, New York City agreed to pay Hincapie $12.875 million for his wrongful conviction, one of the largest such settlements in city history. A separate claim had previously ...
by Jacob Barrett
Despite finding a “paucity of reliable scientific evidence concerning the effect of large doses of midazolam on humans,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit didn’t halt its use in Arkansas’s three-drug execution protocol. To the contrary, it found the lack evidence of means that ...
by Jacob Barrett
On October 3, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a writ of certiorari to hear an appeal by a group of Connecticut prisoners, who lost a challenge to the prohibition on sexually explicit material by the state Department of Corrections (DOC). See: Reynolds v. Quiros ...
by Jacob Barrett
On October 18, 2022, officials in Louisiana’s Bossier Parish agreed to pay $2.75 million to settle a federal suit filed over the 2017 death of a detainee in the parish jail. Collin James Fletcher, 24, died five days after arrest for minor drug possession charges. The cause ...
by Jacob Barrett
On July 15, 2022, the federal court for the District of Nevada awarded $560,587.50 in fees to attorneys representing a state prisoner who earlier settled his medical neglect claim against the state Department of Corrections (DOC) for $7,500. In addition, DOC agreed to amend its policy effectively ...
by Jacob Barrett
On December 5, 2022, a jury in federal court for the Western District of Michigan awarded $6.4 million to the estate of Wade Jones, 40, who was left to die from untreated alcohol withdrawal in his cell at Michigan’s Kent County Correctional Facility (KCCF) by guards and ...
by Jacob Barrett
A detainee found dead in Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail (FCJ) on September 13, 2022, was “eaten alive” by insects, according to an attorney hired by the dead man’s family. Michael Harper said his clients were “horrified” by squalid conditions revealed in photos of the cell where 35-year-old ...
by Jacob Barrett
On October 12, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated dismissal of an Oregon prisoner’s civil rights claims for failure to exhaust administrative remedies available in the state Department of Corrections (DOC), as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. ...
by Jacob Barrett
On July 15, 2022, the federal court for the District of Nevada awarded $560,587.50 in fees to attorneys representing a state prisoner who earlier settled his medical neglect claim against the state Department of Corrections (DOC) for $7,500. In addition, DOC agreed to amend its policy effectively ...
