by Matt Clarke
On October 7, 2024, the federal court for the Southern District of Texas refused a motion by Defendant Harris County Jail officials in Houston to fully dismiss claims made by two Plaintiffs who intervened in a massive suit filed after 27 jail detainees died or were severely ...
by Matt Clarke
On June 3, 2024, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (DCRR) was ordered to implement a pilot program that would immediately bring two state prison complexes up to medical staffing levels recommended by experts appointed by the federal court for the District of Arizona. It ...
by Matt Clarke
On April 17, 2024, Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County settled a lawsuit brought by a Pittsburgh journalist challenging policies and practices that prevented employees of the county’s Bureau of Corrections (BOC) from speaking about matters of public concern at the county jail without first receiving permission from the warden. Under the settlement, the county revised the policies, acknowledging that “its employees and contractors have constitutional rights to speak on matters of public concern when acting as private citizens.”
As Director of the Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, Brittany Hailer “reported extensively on problems at the Allegheny County Jail [ACJ],” her suit noted. In 2023, with pro bono assistance from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) and the Yale School of Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, Hailer filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming that the BOC policies violated the First Amendment. The lawsuit alleged that the policies “effectively silenced jail employees, hampering investigative reporting about issues at the Allegheny County Jail,” which had just recorded 13 deaths in two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, May 2022, p.20.]
Once the suit was filed, “the ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
On May 6, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld a district court’s denial of qualified immunity (QI) to a Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) prison guard who allegedly repeatedly assaulted a compliant and restrained prisoner.
Corey Fisherman is incarcerated at DOC’s ...
by Matt Clarke
After granting a rare stay of execution minutes before a condemned Texas prisoner’s date with death, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) agreed on October 4, 2024, to hear his challenge to a state law that prevents him from seeking DNA testing to reduce his ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
On April 24, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed dismissal of a former federal prisoner’s Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) claim for an injury allegedly caused by federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) guards. A lower court had dismissed the claim, finding ...
On April 25, 2024, a federal jury in Southern California awarded $1.8 million to the Estate of a detainee who died of a methamphetamine overdose while incarcerated at the San Diego Central Jail. The verdict was preceded by a finding that two jail nurses intentionally denied Ronnie Sandoval needed medical ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 20, 2024, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) vetoed SB 334, a bill passed by state lawmakers to prevent prosecutors and courts from requiring criminal defendants to waive their Fourth Amendment rights as a condition of a plea agreement or court order—waivers that can survive completion of their criminal sentences for decades.
Under the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 10 of the Virginia Constitution, citizens have a right not to be subjected to unreasonable search and seizure. But for many state prisoners, even after release, “You can be walking down the street, and a uniformed law enforcement officer can stop you, recognize you, and know you have a waiver, and then proceed to just search you without any cause,” according to Rob Poggenklass, Executive Director of the advocacy group Justice Forward Virginia.
That leaves criminal defendants facing an “impossible choice,” according to Lauren Whitley, Chief Public Defender for Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, King George and Stafford Counties, where the waivers are standard conditions of most plea agreements—which most criminal cases are resolved with, like 95% of those in the U.S.
“It encourages bad policing,” she said. “Fourth Amendment waivers give [police] free reign to do whatever they ...
by Matt Clarke
When detainee Reynaldo Ramos, 55, was found unresponsive in his Robert Pressley Detention Center cell in California’s Riverside County on April 16, 2024, efforts to resuscitate him failed, and he was pronounced dead. He had been arrested on drug trafficking charges 10 days earlier. The County Sheriff’s ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 29, 2024, the federal court for the Central District of California approved a settlement under which Riverside County paid $7.5 million to the survivors of a county jail detainee who died in custody. The agreement resolved a lawsuit they filed blaming the death of Christopher ...
