On February 4, 2010, in a class-action suit brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by eight plaintiffs seeking to represent a class of California state prisoners serving life sentences with possibility of parole, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence K. Karlton issued two significant orders.
The first order granted the plaintiffs’ ...
The authors of a study published in November 2009, which was partially funded by the Emory Center for AIDS Research, reported that the number of HIV/AIDS cases involving releasees from prisons and jails in the U.S. decreased by nearly 30% between 1997 and 2006.
More specifically, the authors found that ...
The family of Jimmy Haws has settled a federal lawsuit against Monterey County and county officials for $1.85 million, two years after initiating litigation following an assault against Haws who, while a pretrial detainee at a jail in Salinas, California, was attacked by a cellmate and sustained permanent brain damage. ...
Forced to trim its budget by $1.2 billion, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is cutting back on rehabilitative programs that help reduce recidivism.
On October 14, 2009, Donovan State Prison closed its “Right Turn” substance abuse program that provided treatment for about 500 prisoners. In so doing, ...
On May 28, 2009, a U.S. District Court granted class-action status to prisoners seeking declaratory and injunctive relief for unconstitutional conditions of confinement at the Passaic County Jail (PCJ) in Paterson, New Jersey. At the same time, the court denied a motion to dismiss filed by defendant George Hayman, Commissioner ...
Faced with an unprecedented budget deficit, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered state workers to stay home three Fridays each month, which amounts to a 14% pay cut. Known as the “Furlough Friday” program, the cost-cutting measure, implemented in February 2009, was supposed to save the state a projected $1.7 billion. ...
By Michael Brodheim
Yet again, San Jose officials have agreed to settle a major civil rights lawsuit arising from the alleged use of excessive police force after a relatively minor offense involving residents from immigrant communities.
In November 2009, an analysis by the San Jose Mercury News revealed that hundreds ...
On September 30, 2009, more than 16 years after being incorrectly “validated” as an associate of a violent California prison gang, and after having spent eight years in an isolation unit as a result of that false validation, former prisoner Ernesto Lira had his records cleared of any indication that ...
In the first national survey of its kind, researchers have documented important attitudes and practices among state and federal correctional medical directors regarding the use of methadone and buprenorphine to treat heroin/opiate addiction in prisoners, both while incarcerated and after release. The importance of the research stems from the prevalence ...
The Ninth Circuit held on Oct. 30, 2009 that the Receiver appointed by a federal court to oversee delivery of medical care to prisoners in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) was not immune from an official-capacity lawsuit for damages. The lawsuit alleged that the Receiver had breached ...
