by Kevin W. Bliss, Matt Clarke, Ashleigh N. Dye and Keith Sanders
As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes from the headlines, its full effect on prisoners and detainees is coming into clearer view. One of the first glimpses was provided in a December 2021 report by the federal Department of Justice ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 9, 2022, the Supreme Court of Arizona ruled that a defendant who asserts attorney-client privilege for communications made from jail to his attorney, including text messages, video visits and phone calls, may not rely on a blanket exception but must make a prima facie showing ...
by Matt Clarke
On June 10, 2022, a final settlement agreement was approved in a federal class-action lawsuit challenging the safety from COVID-19 of detainees held for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in California’s Yuba County Jail (YCJ) and Mesa Verde Detention Center (MVDC). The settlement will protect around ...
by Matt Clarke
On December 23, 2021, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that a state court of appeals erred when it denied a state prisoner’s motion for statutory damages against the Cleveland Police Forensic Laboratory (CPFL) for improperly withholding public records he requested. The Court then set the damage ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 10, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that an Arkansas prisoner had not failed to state an actionable claim against prison medical officials when he accused them of not maintaining his bilateral hearing aids. The decision reversed a ruling by ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 18, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reinstated a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by a former Kentucky jail prisoner who had sex with a transport guard, finding a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether she consented to the ...
by Matt Clarke
In a decision handed down on December 6, 2021, a federal court in Illinois decided that the Constitution’s proscription against the federal government’s efforts to “commandeer” functions that rightfully belong to individual states outweighs the “supremacy clause” of Article VI, which makes federal law “the supreme law ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 8, 2022, PLN finally obtained documents revealing that private prison operator GEO Group, Inc., formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections Corp., paid $10 million to settle two lawsuits brought by the family of a prisoner who was murdered at a Texas jail the firm operated. The ...
by Matt Clarke
In its decision 28 years ago in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a prisoner’s claims affecting the duration of his confinement—including loss of “good time”—are barred when a favorable decision would “negate” a prison disciplinary decision.
Further explaining ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 17, 2021, the same day it explained that a Louisiana prisoner’s civil rights claims are not necessarily barred by related prison disciplinary convictions under Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit applied that reasoning to ...
