by Matt Clarke
On January 16, 2009, a 21-year-old mentally ill man with a long history of violent crimes raped a 69-year-old woman housed in the same Illinois nursing home.
Christopher Shelton, 21, suffers from bipolar disorder that causes him to have an explosive temper, which led to multiple arrests ...
by Matt Clarke
In September 2009, Alaskan officials denied a protest filed by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which was the final hurdle before awarding Cornell Corrections of Alaska (a subsidiary of Cornell Corrections) a contract worth $19,446,000 to house up to 900 Alaskan prisoners in an out-of-state private prison. ...
by Matt Clarke
In September 2009 the U.S. military closed Camp Bucca in Iraq, once its largest detention facility, and the prison at Abu Ghraib experienced a two-day uprising. Camp Bucca cost the U.S. $50 million to build and once held over 22,000 prisoners in separate camps. It was permanently ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 1, 2009, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a lower court’s denial of summary judgment in a case involving the evacuation of prisoners from the Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The case was remanded with instructions ...
by Matt Clarke
In September 2009, Wisconsin officials discovered that the profiles of 17,698 convicted felons were missing from the state’s DNA database.
An investigation into Milwaukee serial killer suspect Walter E. Ellis revealed that his DNA was not in Wisconsin’s 128,065-profile database, though it should have been. An audit ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 14, 2009, the parties in a class action lawsuit against Gloucester County, New Jersey over the county jail’s strip search policies filed a settlement agreement in federal district court agreeing to a $4 million settlement.
Sandra King Wilson was 51 years old when she was ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 5, 2009, prisoners at the Middlesex County Jail in Cambridge, Massachusetts staged a disturbance after 11 prisoners and 2 guards presented flu-like symptoms and the hospital discharge papers for one prisoner indicated probable H1N1 (swine flu). [See: PLN, Feb. 2010, p.1]. However, the Sheriff, jail ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 18, 2009, a U.S. District Court in Washington state granted preliminary approval to a settlement in a class-action lawsuit that challenged booking fee procedures at the Spokane County Jail.
Shawn Huss, a former jail prisoner, filed suit against Spokane County pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § ...
by Matt Clarke
On October 2, 2009, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, held that shackling a pregnant prisoner while she was in labor constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Shawanna Nelson was six months pregnant when she was sent to the ...
by Matt Clarke
A Texas Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of a prisoner’s lawsuit alleging that he suffered retaliation for litigation activities. However, after the case was again dismissed following remand, the appellate court affirmed the dismissal based on untimely service of process.
William Espinoza Pena, a Texas state ...
