In a verdict handed down on August 21, 2014, a federal jury found in favor of an Arkansas prisoner who claimed prison guards had provoked him into attacking them so they could beat him. The jury award of $2,250 included compensatory and punitive damages.
Keith Moore, a state prisoner, was ...
Federal judges, who have lifetime appointments, hold positions that give them unique power to control the future of defendants who appear before them in public proceedings. However, when it comes to examining the personal behavior of those same jurists, they are surrounded by a cloak of secrecy so impenetrable that ...
A $3 million settlement was paid to the parents of a 23-year-old mental health patient killed by three guards at Bridgewater State Hospital who were attempting to strap him into four-point restraints on a small bed. The incident also resulted in the resignation of the state’s top prison official.
Only ...
In June 2013, St. Clair County, Illinois, settled a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by three former prisoners of the St. Clair County Jail alleging unconstitutional conditions of confinement at the jail. Each man received $3,500 in the settlement.
On July 21, 2011, Myron Barber, 49, Timothy J. Headrick, 20, ...
In December 2013, Alameda County, California, and Tennessee-based Corizon Health, Inc. agreed to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by a minor son of a Santa Rita Jail prisoner who died of a heart attack after a being shocked with a Taser and struck by deputies.
Martin Harrison, 50, ...
In November 2013, the City of Jasper, Texas, settled a lawsuit brought by a young black woman who was allegedly beaten by police at the Jasper City Jail without justification. She received $75,000.
Keyarika Diggles, a 25-year-old single mother of two young children, was a young black woman who was ...
By Matt Clarke
It was a bad deal for Texas cities and counties when, prison-construction entrepreneurs talked them into building publicly-financed prisons, for private corporations to operate; housing a surplus of prisoners at a profit. The counties went deep into debt, issuing bonds to pay for prison construction. Now, the ...
By Matt Clarke
Around 43 prisoners in Oklahoma's Bryan County Jail took part in unrest on August 18, 2013. According to Bryan County Sheriff Ken Golden, the prisoners, who had been sentenced to serve time in prison and were awaiting transfer to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC), were being ...
by Matt Clarke
It is not unusual for guards at the short-staffed Henderson Detention Center to earn overtime. In 2012, the 73 guards at the Nevada jail earned a total of $668,000 in overtime pay, an average of $9,000 each. But none could top Michael Karnseyer, who was paid $84,166 ...
By Matt Clarke
In June 2013, the New York City (NYC) Department of Corrections announced that it would cease using solitary confinement as a punishment for mentally ill prisoners. The reasoning underlying the move was not given much of an explanation at the time. However, the long-delayed release of a ...
