by Sam Rutherford
The New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) has long outsourced its constitutional obligation to provide prisoners adequate medical care to private, for-profit corporations with little incentive to do so. Before November 2019, a $41 million annual contract was held by Centurion Correctional Healthcare of New Mexico, LLC, which lost a battle to withhold documentation of legal settlements when PLN’s publisher prevailed in a suit for the records on September 16, 2024, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, Dec. 2024, p.19.]
Quickly growing since its 2011 founding, Centurion and related companies contract with local, state and federal governments in 15 states at 325 lockups. When Centurion took over healthcare for NMCD in June 2016, predecessor Corizon Health had been sued by state prisoners more than 150 times during its nine-year tenure. Another 24 suits were filed during Centurion’s first year, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Nov. 2018, p.60.]
As PLN also reported, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), nonprofit publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News, filed a request pursuant to the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act in August 2020 that Centurion disclose all complaints and settlement agreements for cases in which the company paid ...
By Sam Rutherford
On March 11, 2022, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), PLN’s publisher, filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the Strafford County House of Correction (HOC) violated its rights under the First and Fourteenth ...
By Sam Rutherford
On February 25, 2022, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News (CLN), filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska against Scott Frakes, Director of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (DCS), under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ...
By Sam Rutherford
On February 5, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the summary judgment dismissal of a pretrial detainee’s federal civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, agreeing with the lower court that a jail guard was not guilty of failure to protect ...
Division I of the Washington State Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court dismissal of an action challenging phone companies' failure to disclose the rates for collect calls made by Washington prisoners. Relief was denied because the plaintiffs did not bring the appropriate agency into the suit and did ...
The Washington Supreme Court recently held that prisoners are entitled to good time credits for time served in presentence detention, even if they receive a firearm or other deadly weapon sentence enhancement following conviction. Understanding the Court's ruling first requires a brief discussion of Washington's firearm and deadly weapon enhancement ...
Represent Yourself in Court: How to Prepare & Try a Winning Case, 3rd Ed.
By Attorneys Paul Bergman & Sara BermanBarrett, Nolo Press, 2001 (528 pages)
Reviewed by Sam Rutherford
The third edition of Represent Yourself in Court is a plainenglish guide to handling a civil case from start to ...
By Sam Rutherford
The case, Corner v. State of Washington , [see page 6] is only one of many medical neglect suits that the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) has settled. In fact, below is a comprehensive list of the medical neglect cases filed by prisoners that the DOC settled ...
At any given time there are approximately 500,000 people incarcerated in the more than 3,500 city and county jails across the United States. Some of these individuals are confined while awaiting trial, others are serving relatively short sentences for offenses ranging from misdemeanor or minor felony convictions to probation or ...
by Stephen Elias and Susan Levinkind
Legal Research does exactly what its title indicates; it explains how to find and understand the law. The book is written in easy to understand language, while imparting a vast amount of information in a comprehensive manner.
The book is broken down into sections ...
