by Lonnie Burton
In May 2017, a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who worked at the L.A. County jail and helped send colleagues to prison for obstructing an FBI investigation was set to receive $1.275 million after the settlement of her federal lawsuit accusing the sheriff’s department of retaliating ...
by Lonnie Burton
Following a trial that began on March 6, 2017, a federal jury awarded a former prisoner more than $13 million after he sued the City of Chicago, seven police officers and two Cook County prosecutors over his wrongful convictions for a 1992 double homicide.
Deon Patrick spent ...
by Lonnie Burton
A “white paper” published in November 2016 by Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts (PLSM) found that while the use of solitary confinement in the state was widespread, it did not produce provable cost-effectiveness or reduce prison violence – and that solitary may actually be bad for public ...
by Lonnie Burton
A federal judge has held that members of the media and witnesses may view all aspects of executions carried out in Arizona. State prison officials can no longer prohibit journalists from seeing prisoners being escorted into the death chamber, the insertion of drug catheters or the administration ...
by Lonnie Burton
Homophobic police officers in Reno, Nevada framed a mentally ill woman for a murder she did not commit by labeling her a lesbian, withholding evidence and coercing a confession from her, her attorneys claimed in a lawsuit filed in August 2016. The woman spent 35 years in ...
by Lonnie Burton
In November 2016, the Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Seattle, Washington adopted a resolution calling on the city to stop using state Department of Corrections (DOC) work crews to clean up homeless encampments. HRC’s announcement came just two months after a federal judge in nearby Tacoma found ...
by Lonnie Burton
On January 24, 2017, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a ruling by a New York federal district court that dismissed a lawsuit brought by a prisoner who had challenged the constitutionality of his 22 consecutive years in solitary confinement. The appellate court concluded ...
by Lonnie Burton
In January 26, 2017, a divided Washington Supreme Court held that a trial court could not terminate the parental rights of an incarcerated father without considering the facts of his incarceration as required by legislative amendments to the statutes governing termination of parental rights. The 5-4 decision ...
by Lonnie Burton
In 2008 a lawsuit filed by a Mexican citizen who had obtained lawful permanent resident status in the United States and was later detained while trying to return to the U.S. from Mexico was settled for $99,000. The settlement came after a failed government motion to dismiss ...
by Lonnie Burton
On October 1, 2013, U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti, sitting in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, signed a stipulated order dismissing a lawsuit filed by a man who was unlawfully detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) despite the ...
