by Victoria Law
Ayana Aubourg was seven years old when her father was sentenced to 10 years in prison. For the next decade he parented through letters, weekly phone calls and once-a-year visits. He missed most of her childhood – picking her up from school, helping her with her ...
by Kevin Bliss
A report by the California State Auditor, released on January 31, 2019, found that rehabilitative programs currently offered by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) did not assist in reducing the state’s 50 percent recidivism rate.
The report, requested by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, ...
by Jayson Hawkins
"Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me.”
Terrell Isaiah Wilson, 24, could be heard pleading for his life on video footage shot on April 13, 2016 at the Ramsey County jail in St, Paul, Minnesota. After being arrested for the theft of two cell phones, Wilson ...
by Quinton Chandler, StateImpact Oklahoma
When a private citizen’s civil rights are violated by the government, typically, they have the opportunity to sue, but under a recent Oklahoma Supreme Court decision, that might not be the case for prisoners in Oklahoma jails and detention centers.
The Supreme Court ruling ...
by Paul Wright
I want to thank everyone who has donated to HRDC’s annual fundraiser. Of course, anytime is a good time to donate and we are always in need of funding and support, not just at the end of the year. I would like to encourage readers to become ...
by David M. Reutter
On September 25, 2019, Pennsylvania’s Delaware County Council abolished its Board of Prison Inspectors (BPI) and replaced it with a Jail Oversight Board (JOB), after problems occurred at the privately operated Delaware County Prison, formerly known as the George W. Hill Correctional Facility. PLN has previously ...
by Matt Clarke
After spending seven years and more than $1.6 million seeking the death penalty for a prisoner who killed a Colorado prison guard, prosecutors plea-bargained the case for a life sentence. The state is reimbursing the county for the costs of prosecution; the expenses for defense counsel ...
by Kevin Bliss
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals held on September 12, 2019 that William Escalera, Jr. was not barred from proceeding in forma pauperis and filing a complaint after a New York district court found he had three strikes under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), ...
by David M. Reutter
A federal district court held that Prison Legal News’ First Amendment and due process rights were violated when reading materials it sent to prisoners at the Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center (NRADC) in Virginia were rejected due to the jail’s mail policy.
Prior to implementation ...
by David M. Reutter
On August 14, 2019, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of a federal prisoner’s civil rights complaint that alleged he was confined in a cold cell with constant lighting, no bedding and only paper-like clothing.
FCI Allenwood Low prisoner Anthony Mammana appealed after ...
by David M. Reutter
During the recent campaign to reinstate the voting rights of 1.4 million disenfranchised Florida felons, Republicans rallied against a constitutional amendment out of fear that former prisoners would vote as Democrats. Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and a top adviser, now claims they had it wrong ...
by Douglas Ankney
On June 28, 2019, the Grayson County Circuit Court awarded $197.55 to state prisoner Gary Brown following a bench trial in which he proceeded pro se on a tort claim against the Commonwealth of Virginia (Commonwealth).
Brown’s complaint alleged that on July 22, 2016, he was speaking ...
by Scott Grammer
Daryle Starks is a retired chief petty officer of the U.S. Navy, with 24 years in the service. He was working at South Carolina’s Tyger River Correctional Institution, supervising prisoners as they made hardwood flooring on the overnight shift, when he wrote a self-published book titled ...
by Mark Wilson
On July 22, 2019, Oregon joined 22 other states and the District of Columbia in eliminating life without parole sentences for prisoners who committed their offenses as juveniles. The state enacted quite possibly the most progressive and broad juvenile justice reforms in the nation, ending the state’s ...
by Dale Chappell
The Arizona Court of Appeals held on September 25, 2019 that the possibility of information about gang members who had dropped out or were not in “good standing” falling into the wrong hands leaned in favor of redacting records released to a defendant’s attorney, overturning a trial ...
by Matt Clarke
California has a history of using prisoners to fight wildfires that dates back to World War II. But that practice is being questioned after 2018 was one of the worst fire seasons ever recorded, and several prisoners were seriously injured fighting the infamous Camp Fire.
Critics point ...
by David M. Reutter
Anquanette Woodall’s third child was born in 2016 – during her third year of a 15-year sentence for burglary and robbery – after she was raped by Florida prison guard Travis Hinson in an area at the Gadsden Correctional Facility not covered by security cameras. ...
by Matt Clarke
The first prison ever closed in Texas was the Central Unit in Sugar Land, which had originally been a leased convict labor camp known as the Imperial Sugar Company State Prison Farm. When the facility was established in 1867, the state leased its prisoners to the ...
by David M. Reutter
After five days of searching, authorities apprehended escaped Tennessee prisoner Curtis Ray Watson. He was then sent to the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Watson was serving a 15-year sentence for especially aggravated kidnapping, and had a 2025 release date. He was considered a ...
by Flores A. Forbes, The Crime Report
While I was serving a six- to-eight year sentence in the California Department of Corrections for felony murder, I became a participant in what was then the Pell Grant college education program for incarcerated individuals at Soledad State Prison. One day, my counselor ...
by Scott Grammer
On June 7, 2019, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), the parent organization of Prison Legal News, entered into a settlement agreement in a public records case involving the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The settlement stemmed from a May 2018 complaint filed against the BOP ...
Loaded on
Jan. 8, 2020
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2020, page 31
A 143-page federal indictment filed on May 21, 2019 described criminal violations allegedly committed by Ronald Yandell, Daniel Troxell, William Sylvester, Travis Burhop, Brant Daniel, Donald Mazza, Pat Brady, Jason Corbett, Matthew Hall, Samuel Keeton, Michael Torres, Jeanna Quesenberry, Kevin McNamara, Kristen Demar, Justin Petty and Kathleen Nolan.
The ...
by Ed Lyon
On September 9, 2019, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a Louisiana district court’s denial of qualified immunity to three of four defendants in a prisoner’s civil rights suit.
State prisoner Clarence Jason was on the recreation yard when another prisoner he had argued with ...
by Douglas Ankney
The New Mexico Court of Appeals held that third-party settlement agreements, resulting from medical care provided by Corizon Health under a contract with the state, are public documents subject to disclosure under the Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA).
In 2016, the New Mexico Foundation for Open ...
by David M. Reutter
The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania found it lacked jurisdiction in a case brought by a prisoner who was issued a belt and then later punished for possessing it. Dissenting judges called the disciplinary action taken by prison officials “Kafkaesque.”
While housed at SCI-Fayette, Albert Dantzler was ...
by Douglas Ankney
In November 2019, an employee of private food service provider Aramark Correctional Services at Indiana’s Correctional Industrial Facility in Pendleton was captured on surveillance video delivering a package and $300 in cash to a prisoner. Kevin Lake, 26, admitted to smuggling the contraband he had received from ...
by Scott Grammer
Robert J. “Bob” Dennis, CEO of Genesco, a Nashville shoe and boot retailer, was first appointed to the board of directors of CoreCivic, the private prison company formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America, in February 2013. However, in May 2019 his time on the board was ...
by Kevin Bliss
In September 2019, Michael Nerheim, State’s Attorney for Lake County, Illinois, dropped felony murder charges against four juveniles and one 18-year-old following pressure from activists.
The charges against the “Lake County Five” stemmed from a confrontation at 1:00 a.m. on August 23, 2019 between a ...
by Douglas Ankney
On July 3, 2009, the first day that Sheriff Bill Gore assumed operational control of San Diego County’s jail system, a prisoner killed himself. In October 2019, Don Jon Ralph became the 14th person held at one of the county’s seven jails to die during that ...
by David M. Reutter
A Michigan federal district court has dismissed a civil rights action alleging a prisoner was repeatedly and deliberately exposed to peanut butter and fish, which were known to cause serious allergic reactions. The court found the complaint failed to allege specific actions or involvement by the ...
by Mark Wilson
Michael Barton was sentenced to a six-year prison term by the Jackson County Circuit Court in April 2017, for second-degree robbery of a bank. Surveillance video immediately called his mental state into question when it showed Barton waiting politely while bank employees not only collected the ...
by Dale Chappell
An audit released on September 18, 2019 found, among other issues, that missing property and abuse of overtime in Illinois’ prison system cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year.
The two-year audit reported that prison staff were taking paid leave time but then coming in to work ...
by Kevin Bliss
Broadcom co-founder Henry Nicholas III and his friend, Ashley Fargo, entered Alford pleas in Nevada’s Clark County District Court on October 2, 2019, to two counts of felony drug possession. The plea agreement stipulated that the charges would be dismissed in one year if they completed ...
by Dale Chappell
A federal prisoner who won a $250,000 settlement against the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), following an injury that required surgery and a month-long hospital stay, is fighting government lawyers who want that money to go toward restitution.
Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli, 67, slipped and fell at ...
by Dale Chappell
Most people have heard about the death penalty. But how many have heard of someone being declared “civilly dead” and stripped of their civil rights after receiving a life sentence, even if they are eligible for parole?
Welcome to Rhode Island, where the concept of “civil death” ...
by Kevin Bliss
New York legislators and Governor Andrew M. Cuomo agreed that the state’s 2019-2020 budget will include provisions to shut down two prisons, the Lincoln Correctional Facility in Manhattan and the Livingston Correctional Facility in Sonyea, saving over $35 million. This makes 15 prisons that have closed since ...
by Dale Chappell
The New York Court of Claims ordered the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) to produce records in two cases where prisoners filed claims alleging excessive force by guards.
In the first case, in an October 24, 2018 ruling, Judge Frank Milano ordered DOCCS to turn ...
by Dale Chappell
A female Rikers Island prisoner who was raped by a guard had to sneak DNA evidence of the sexual assault out of the jail to get anyone to believe her story. As a result, the guard, Jose Cosme, was arrested and convicted.
The unnamed prisoner, identified as ...
by David M. Reutter
The Tennessee Department of Correction’s (TDOC) chronic Hepatitis C (HCV) treatment policies “are not perfect,” a federal district court found, but they do not violate the Eighth Amendment rights of state prisoners.
That ruling came after the district court held a bench trial in July 2019. ...
by Kevin Bliss
On October 8, 2019, a corporate reorganization listed Aventiv Technologies as the parent company of Securus Technologies, Inc., JPay and AllPaid (formerly known as GovPayNet). Securus has a long history of providing prison and jail phone services, and price gouging prisoners and their families with high rates. ...
by Matt Clarke
Nevada County, California and Correctional Medical Group Companies (CMGC) – now known as Wellpath – agreed to pay $550,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a former jail prisoner who alleged his leg was broken by a jailer in an incident involving excessive force.
Christopher Joshua Howie, ...
by Douglas Ankney
In August 2019, a half-dozen 10-year-old jail fees were eliminated by the county council in St. Louis, Missouri, wiping out nearly $3.4 million in debt for unpaid fees owed by former prisoners and current detainees at the county jail.
“Many of the individuals in custody already face ...
by David M. Reutter
Organizers of the Smart on Crime Innovations conference – an annual gathering of community leaders, elected officials, organizers, researchers, journalists and lawyers aimed at reforming the criminal justice system – tweeted an apology for allowing Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to speak at the event, ...
by Matt Clarke
When she received a 12-year prison sentence for selling $31 worth of marijuana to a police informant in December 2009 and January 2010, first-time felony offender Patricia Spottedcrow, then-25, thought she wouldn’t see her four young children until they were teenagers. Then her story was featured in ...
by Ed Lyon
Shali Tilson, 22, had struggled with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia since he was eight years old. His conditions were managed by medication, though due to their adverse side effects he stopped taking them during high school. He appeared to be successfully coping through a combination of diet ...
by David M. Reutter
As the incarceration rate for women has grown throughout the nation, so has the focus on how they are treated while imprisoned. With the recent enactment of a new state law, Georgia joined the majority of states that have adopted statutes to protect pregnant prisoners.
The ...
by Chad Marks
In 1994, California lawmakers passed a bill that charged prisoners a $3.00 fee when they visited the infirmary for medical or dental care in city and county jails.
Twenty-five years later, on September 10, 2019, the California senate voted in favor of Assembly Bill 45, which eliminates ...
by Mark Wilson
The Oregon Court of Appeals held on July 31, 2019 that first-class mail is insufficient to allow a mailing date to serve as the filing date for a notice of appeal.
The timely filing of a notice of appeal is a jurisdictional prerequisite for an appeal under ...
by Mark Wilson
On September 25, 2019, a federal jury in Oregon ordered Multnomah County jail officials to pay $125,000 to a deaf man for refusing to accommodate his disability while he was in custody.
David Updike, 52, was born deaf and communicates through American Sign Language (ASL). He never ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 9, 2019, the Denver City Council voted to pay $1.55 million to settle a lawsuit brought by female deputies who worked at the Denver jail. The settlement included $609,228.78 in attorney fees, and each of the 15 plaintiffs will receive $62,715.42. The suit complained of ...
by Dale Chappell
In April 2019, a jury awarded a prisoner held at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution $350,000 in damages when he was attacked by other prisoners after a guard announced that he was a “PC” (protective custody) case.
Oregon state prisoner Skyler Floro, a former gang member, claimed ...
by Kevin Bliss
Wisconsin has agreed to settlements with three juveniles who alleged abuse while they were held at the Lincoln Hills School for Boys/Copper Lake School for Girls (LH/CL). Paige Ray-Cluney, Laera Reed and Jacob Bailey will receive a total of $4.78 million, bringing Wisconsin’s payouts in lawsuits concerning ...
by Ed Lyon
For the last 50 to 60 years, improvements in prison conditions have typically only come about through lengthy, adversarial litigation. During and after losing such lawsuits, state prison systems often delay, fail to adhere to consent decrees and are sometimes cited for contempt until, finally, they grudgingly ...
by Ed Lyon
At least three major federal lawsuits involving the jail in Monterey County, California had been filed prior to Erick DeAnda’s death at the facility on September 16, 2015, in an isolation cell in a unit designated for mentally ill prisoners.
DeAnda was 24 years old when he ...
by Chad Marks
Walking 200 feet to the chow hall was excruciating, said 35-year-old Arizona prisoner Waylon Collingwood. Held at ASPC-Lewis, he had already been to the medical department several times in July 2019 to seek help for his symptoms, which also included vomiting and nausea, only to be wrongly ...
by Kevin Bliss
An assistance project for pro se litigants, started by retired federal judge Richard Posner, shut down after just over a year because there was much greater demand than could be provided by the organization.
Posner, who sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ...
by Matt Clarke
On August 20, 2019, the Supreme Court of Ohio granted in part and denied in part a prisoner’s pro se petition for a writ of mandamus to compel a prison official to provide him with records he had requested pursuant to Ohio’s public records act, R.C. 149.43. ...
by Ed Lyon
Stamford, Connecticut attorneys David P. Friedman and Lorey Rives Leddy are representing prisoners at the Osborn Correctional Institution (OCI) over environmental hazards at that facility.
Not only are the prisoners routinely exposed to toxic and cancer-causing materials like PCBs and asbestos, they also have been drinking water ...
Loaded on
Jan. 9, 2020
published in Prison Legal News
January, 2020, page 63
Arizona: Former Cochise County jail chaplain Doug Packer, 63, resigned on March 10, 2019. A volunteer since 2008, Packer had served as a full-time jail chaplain starting in 2012 but was placed on paid leave on January 5, 2019 after he was arrested at home. A female prisoner had ...
