by Matt Clarke
On July 19, 2011, a federal jury in North Carolina awarded $10 million to the parents and estate of a teenager who died after being shocked with a Taser fired by a police officer. The defendant in the case was Taser International, Inc.
In March 2008, 17-year-old ...
by Matt Clarke
In March 2011, Lt. Colonel Vyacheslav Tippel, former head of the prison department for the St. Petersburg region in Russia, received a seven-year sentence for ordering the rape and torture of a prisoner. Six other prison officials with the Federal Service for the Execution of Punishment (FSIN) ...
By Matt Clarke
On January 29, 2009, the Arizona Court of Appeals held that plaintiffs’ attorney fees must be paid by the state in the Bilke case.
Mitchell Paul Bilke, Charles Roberts, Kenneth Asherman, Felton Hale, Richard S. Berry, Mervin L. Davis and Damon D. Fisher are Arizona state prisoners ...
By Matt Clarke
On April 12,2011, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion upholding the $2.5 million jury award and $250-per-hour attorney-fees award to two women who were wrongly convicted of felonies.
Kimberly Sykes and Tevya Grace Urquhart were wrongly convicted of larceny by conversion and false report ...
by Matt Clarke
At an annual cost of $175,000 per civilly-committed sex offender, New York’s civil commitment program is the second most expensive in the country (Washington state is first at a cost of $177,000 per prisoner). As of December 2010, the more than $40 million-per-year program, which has the ...
by Matt Clarke
The Sixth Circuit held that Michigan had to allow the appeal of a prisoner’s criminal conviction when prison officials had delayed the mailing of his appeal documents until after the filing deadline had expired.
Following his criminal conviction in state court, John Andrew Dorn, a Michigan prisoner, ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 14, 2007, the Fifth Circuit court of appeals ruled that a post-conviction DNA testing motion filed pursuant to Chapter 64 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure (C.C.P.) tolled the one-year limitations period for federal habeas corpus set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(2).
Wilbert ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 15, 2007, a federal court in Louisiana held that the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) may be liable for the sexual assault of a prisoner by a CCA captain at a CCA-run prison in Louisiana.
Brian B. Mitchell, a Louisiana state prisoner, was incarcerated at ...
by Matt Clarke
Shiite Muslim prisoners in New York state prisons have long sought their own services separate from the majority Sunni Muslims. A recent federal court of appeals decision may help them get it.
The New York Department of Corrections (DOC) has 7,987 prisoners who identify themselves to prison ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
PLN has reported extensively on some of the issues surrounding the treatment of prisoners in the American military prisons which were set up to hold people suspected of committing or supporting terrorism. This ranges from the murder, torture and abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan ...
