by Matt Clarke
On April 12, 2016, Gary Mohr, the director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC), announced that the state would phase out farming at 10 prisons. Since then, farm animals and equipment have been sold at auction. But critics say that taxpayers did not get ...
In 1999, defendants settled for $145,000 in a lawsuit brought by the estate and family of a Texas prisoner who was brutally beaten by guards and restrained in a position that caused fatal asphyxiation. Gary Lee Crensaw was serving a 45-year sentence at TDCJ*s Robertson Unit on January 25, 1997, ...
by Matthew Clarke
In November 2016, the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault and the Prison Justice League (PJL) published a report on sexual assaults in Texas prisons. The report concluded that Texas has failed to stem sexual violence within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) with sexual assault rates ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 23, 2016, a Texas court of appeals upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought against a parole board member and two parole commissioners.
John Henry Boykin, a Texas state prisoner, filed a state lawsuit against parole board member Cynthia Tauss and parole commissioners Lynn Ruzika ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 9, 2016, a Texas court of appeals dismissed a prisoner's writ of injunction because the prisoner had no other proceeding in that court.
Tracey W. Murphy, a Texas state prisoner, filed an original proceeding seeking a temporary injunction, and ultimately a permanent injunction, against prison ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 1, 2015, a California court of appeal vacated the decision of the Board of Parole Hearings to deny parole to a prisoner who had been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison because the decision was impermissibly based upon the prisoner’s claim ...
by Matt Clarke
When California Governor Jerry Brown announced his intention of getting a voter initiative to reduce the length of time nonviolent prisoners would spend in prison onto the ballot, it engendered opposition ... and a sense of irony. Brown was the governor who ushered in California's "tough-on-crime" era ...
By Matt Clarke
Lance Lowry, a Texas prison guard and the head of the Huntsville local of the union representing the most prison guards in Texas, said a prison supervisor who fired a gas gun at a crowd of prisoners indoors was definitely out of line. However, he blames lack ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 20, 2017, an Oklahoma federal jury awarded $10.25 million to the estate of a prisoner who died at the Tulsa County Jail.
According to court documents, Elliot Earl Williams, 37, a U.S. Army veteran, was arrested by Owasso police officers responding to a complaint about ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 19, 2017, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the award of $36 million in damages and nearly $5 million in attorney fees to two New York men who were wrongly convicted of rape and murder, and spent 18 years in prison.
In January 1985, ...
