Matt Clarke
On July 13, 2023, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that a state prisoner who previously settled his excessive force claim against the state Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (DRC) for $2,000 had no clear right to the names of DRC personnel involved in settlement negotiations.
In 2016, ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 11, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed denial of qualified immunity (QI) to an Oklahoma jail guard because a reasonable jury could find that kneeing a handcuffed pretrial detainee’s face “sufficed to show a legal violation.”
Jesse Wise had been ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 23, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) published a report and recommendations concerning access to attorneys for pretrial detainees in federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities.
The report focused on detainees’ confidential communications with their attorneys, their ability to review discovery documents provided electronically ...
by Matthew Clarke
A federal indictment handed down in June 2023 accused Scott H. Jenkins, 51, Sheriff of Virginia’s Culpeper County, of taking bribes totaling more than $72,500 from three local businessmen to make them auxiliary deputy sheriffs—issuing them badges, identification cards, guns and body armor, even helping one get ...
by Matt Clarke
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” as former British Prime Minister William Gladstone famously said. On August 7, 2023, a former Illinois prisoner finally got a measure of justice for a botched release 13 years earlier. On that date, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 26, 2023, two sons filed suit for the estate of their schizophrenic dad, accusing officials at San Diego County’s Central Jail where he was incarcerated of letting him die from dehydration, starvation and pneumonia. The lawsuit raises the question: How should jail officials treat detainees ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 26, 2023, the Michigan Supreme Court held that journalists seeking release of videos from the state Department of Corrections (DOC) were prevailing parties and thus entitled to recover attorney fees—even if their attorneys were working pro bono.
Proceeding under the state Freedom of Information Act ...
by Matt Clarke
A $7 million settlement reached in April 2023 marked the latest chapter in a sordid tale of mismanagement at Bi-State Jail (BSJ) in Texarkana, Texas, by former private operator LaSalle Corrections. But the family-owned prison profiteer, based in Ruston, Louisiana—which ended its contract to run BSJ in ...
by Matt Clarke
On June 14, 2023, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin held that a state prisoner must be given jail time credit on his sentence when the charge resulting in jail time was read in at his sentencing on another charge.
Michael K. Fermanich stole three trucks in Langlade ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 13, 2023, the California Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District reinstated a putative class-action lawsuit brought by a prisoner at San Quentin State Prison alleging a problematic prisoner transfer led to a severe outbreak of COVID-19 early in the pandemic.
As PLN reported, ...
