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Articles by Matthew Clarke

Texas Prison Reform Model Maintains Mass Incarceration and Racial Disparity

by Matt Clarke

In 2007, Texas asked the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments to recommend ways it could reduce incarceration and criminal justice expenditures, then enacted most of the recommendations. This package of reforms became known as "The Texas Model." In recent years, the Texas Model has ...

Texas Jail Officials Disciplined, Indicted for Leaving Prisoner in Squalor

by Matt Clarke

On October 10, 2013, a Texas jail compliance team discovered mentally ill Harris County jail prisoner Terry Goodwin, 54, in a cell "amid heaps of trash, swarms of bugs, and piles of his own feces." Goodwin had apparently been locked in the cell for at least a ...

Ohio Supreme Court Rejects Union's Challenge to Prison Privatization

by Matt Clarke

On February 11, 2016, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association's (OCSEA) challenge to the statute allowing for the private operation or sale of certain Ohio state prisons. In doing so, the court rejected the union's claim that the statute violated state constitutional ...

Connecticut Supreme Court: Death Penalty Abolition is Retroactive

by Matt Clarke

On August 12, 2015, the Supreme Court of Connecticut ruled that to execute a person following the state legislature's prospective abolition of the death penalty would violate the state constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Eduardo Santiago was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in ...

Eighth Circuit Upholds Immigration Detention of American Citizen

On February 21, 2017, the Eight Circuit court of appeals affirmed the dismissal of a civil rights lawsuit brought by an American citizen who was held over a weekend in a Nebraska jail on an immigration detainer.

Ramon Mendoza was taken to the Sarpy County, Nebraska, jail after he was ...

MA Supreme Court: Registration Not Mandatory for Juvenile Sex Offenders

On February 17, 2017, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that sex offender registration and GPS monitoring were not mandatory for a juvenile who had been convicted of a sex offense and adjudicated both as a delinquent juvenile and a youthful offender.

Samuel S. was 17 years-old when he ...

$15,000 to Wisconsin Jail Prisoner for Medical Neglect

by Matt Clarke

A former Wisconsin jail prisoner settled his medical neglect lawsuit for $15,000.

After Brian Shebelske had been incarcerated at the Marathon County Jail for twenty months, he had to be transported to the hospital emergency room and receive multiple blood transfusions. He had developed severe pernicious anemia ...

$420 to Assaulted Former Oklahoma Jail Prisoner for Injuries

Mr. Dowler was 31-years old when he in custody for DUI in the city of Bixby in Tulsa County, Oklahoma. While he was in custody, he was assaulted and suffered cuts on his head and two fractured teeth. Aided by Tulsa attorney Larry Oliver, he filed a lawsuit against the ...

$1,500,000 Verdict for Medical Neglect of Arizona Prisoner

by Matt  Clarke

In April 1999, an Arizona court awarded $1,500,000 to a man who suffered an intestinal injury while a prisoner and denied timely medical treatment.

Mr. Griffin was 40-years old and an artist when he was incarcerated in 1994. During his incarceration, he suffered perforation of a duodenal ...

$9,000 to Florida Jail Inmate for Burned Foot

In September 1995, a Florida jail prisoner who had suffered third-degree burns on his foot after a steam kettle in the jail's kitchen spilled boiling water on to him settled the suit he had brought for $9,000. Mr. Lay was a prisoner in the Volusia County jail working in a ...