by Matt Clarke
On December 30, 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the denial of qualified immunity to two Phoenix police officers and two Maricopa County jail guards in a civil rights case alleging they beat a prisoner to death.
When mentally ill U.S. Army veteran Ernest “Marty” ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 3, 2017, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down an opinion that reversed a district court’s finding of substantive due process violations in a civil rights complaint brought by civilly committed sex offenders in Minnesota.
In the class-action suit, sex offenders who had been ...
by Matt Clarke
Fred W. Phelps, Sr., 85, was widely known as the founder and leader of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas – a cult-like group that practices hate speech at the most inappropriate venues, including funerals for soldiers killed in combat. The church, which has no relation ...
by Matt Clarke
In November 8, 2016, Colorado voters rejected a ballot measure that would have amended the state constitution to remove 140-year-old language allowing slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime. The removal of the exception to the constitution’s general prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude was rejected ...
by David M. Reutter and Matt Clarke
New York City’s Rikers Island, one of the nation’s largest jails, has a notorious history of violence – both by guards and prisoners. City leaders have long sought to solve the problem that Rikers poses, but resistance by local residents to housing prisoners ...
by Matt Clarke
Texas licensed vocational nurse Brittany Johnson was arrested on June 28, 2016 and charged with misdemeanor negligent homicide in the death of female prisoner Morgan Angerbauer, 20, who died of diabetic ketoacidosis at the Bi-State Detention Facility in Texarkana, Texas. Johnson pleaded not guilty at a pre-trial ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 16, 2016, a Texas court of appeals held that a legislative amendment that removed criminal penalties for violations of sex offender civil commitment supervision requirements applied to cases that were pending on appeal on the enactment date of the amendment.
Enrique Martinez, a Texas civilly ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 14, 1966, the Supreme Court of the United States held that demonstrators may be arrested for protesting on jail property.
A group of about 200 students were protesting on a nonpublic jail driveway and adjacent jail grounds, blocking access to the jail. The sheriff told ...
by Matt Clarke
A federal jury awarded an Oklahoma woman $6.5 million after she was sexually assaulted by a Hollis, Oklahoma assistant police chief while held at the Harmon County jail.
Tiffany Ann Glover, 33, filed a federal civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Harmon County ...
