They’re supposed to safeguard pretrial detainees. But America’s oldest law enforcement agency is suffering from a massive dereliction of duty.
by Seth Freed Wessler, Mother Jones
A large rectangle of red dirt on the flat expanse of West Texas’ Permian Basin reminds Sadrac Garcia every day of what his family ...
by Matt Clarke
A solicitation of bids last Novem-ber to refurbish a “non-lethal/lethal” electric fence surrounding a federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) prison in Tucson, Arizona, resulted in three offers between $3.3 million and $3.8 million and some questions over whether the electric fences comport with international law.
The trend ...
by Paul Wright
Anyone who has been arrested by the federal government can attest to the experience of being held in custody by the U.S. Marshals Service. While the federal Bureau of Prisons operates a few pretrial detention centers (aka jails) in large cities, the vast majority of federal defendants ...
by David M. Reutter
After decades of leading the charge during the tough-on-crime era, Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. is trying to fashion himself as a champion of prison reform. Since July 2019 his campaign website has included proposals to abolish the death ...
by Mark Wilson
This isn’t just an issue of economics,” said Oregon Senator Sara Gelser, the chief sponsor of a bill prohibiting jail and prison telephone contract kickbacks that passed nearly unanimously. “This is really about the humanity of the people that are in our prisons and the ability of ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
Twenty-five years after the federal government restricted prisoners from obtaining Pell Grants to pay for higher education while incarcerated, bipartisan support for new legislation reinstating access is gaining ground in the national conversation surrounding mass incarceration.
“Education is to the future for just about anyone and ...
by David M. Reutter
Pennsylvania’s Erie County agreed to pay $1.15 million to settle a civil rights action alleging the county jail had a policy that “required a non-medical person to make a medical decision about what to do with someone suffering from a medical emergency.”
The lawsuit was filed ...
by Matt Clarke
In 2018, Corizon Health was the largest for-profit provider of prisoner health care in the country. It contracted with 534 correctional facilities in 27 states holding about 15 percent of the nation’s prisoners. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Corizon was sued for malpractice 660 times ...
by Matt Clarke
The family of a man who died at a jail in Harris County, Texas while being subjected to a dangerous form of restraint settled for $2.5 million in a lawsuit they brought against the county and seven jail officials.
Kenneth Christopher Lucas, 38, was arrested on a ...
by David M. Reutter
Campaign contributions from private medical provider Wellpath to Virginia’s Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman may be legal under Virginia law but are raising ethical questions. Wellpath is already under federal investigation for a contract renewal in Norfolk County.
Wellpath was known as Correct Care Solutions until ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Jail conditions are seldom equated to accommodations at a five-star hotel. Even so, there are lockups where the environment threatens a clear and ever-present danger to prisoners and staff alike. Such is the case at East Baton Rouge Parish Prison (EBRPP) a community jail that a ...
by David M. Reutter
The superintendent of Pennsylvania’s George W. Hill Correctional Facility, which is run by GEO Group, resigned in November after a media investigation uncovered a buried whistleblower complaint alleging racist and abusive behavior.
John A. Reilly, Jr., was recruited in 2001 as deputy superintendent George ...
by David M. Reutter
A $200,000 settlement was reached to resolve a civil rights action alleging a guard at Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish Jail subjected a 15-year-old detainee to repeated sexual abuse.
The complaint stated that every day that guard Eddie Williams, 69, worked between June 2015 and January 2016, ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 18, 2019, a federal district court ordered the Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC) to provide access to videophones for all of its deaf and hard of hearing prisoners and prisoners who wish to communicate with people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The court ...
by Kevin Bliss
Prisoners of the Maui Community Correctional Center (MCCC) rioted March 11, 2019, over unstable, inhumane and unconstitutional living conditions. Complaints about broken telephones, uncollected mail, overcrowding, shortened visits and other problems resulted in prisoners from two modules destroying showers and toilets, setting living areas on fire, and ...
by Ed Lyon
John Nigl began his 100-year prison stretch in 2001 at Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin. From April of 2013 until January of 2015, Nigl received psychological counseling from Dr. Sandra Johnston. Their sessions ceased when Johnston left her employment. The two shared a kiss when Johnston left. ...
by Kevin Bliss
Eagle Pass Correctional Facility (EPCF) have been investigated by the Maverick County, Texas Sheriff’s Office, the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC), Corizon Correctional Healthcare, and the GEO Group after 56-year-old Kim Sargent Taylor died in January 2019, of “natural causes.” Taylor had been to medical a week ...
by Kevin Bliss
Communities and politicians are acting in concerted effort during a brisk economy to reduce the obstacles preventing recently incarcerated citizens from once again becoming productive members of society. States are holding business summits geared at facilitating the hiring of ex-offenders, passing bills to increase employment opportunities and ...
by Kevin Bliss
On November 1, 2019, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt approved commutation for 527 prisoners. The Oklahoma commutation is the largest mass commutation in the history of the nation. The citizens of Oklahoma voted yes on State Question 780 in 2016, which decriminalized low-level, nonviolent property crimes and certain ...
by Douglas Ankney
In October 2, 2019, the California Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District ruled that the qualified attorney work-product protection doctrine applies in habeas corpus proceedings. In 1997, a jury convicted Samuel Zamudio Jimenez of two counts of murder and sentenced him to death.
Jiminez filed ...
by Dale Chappell
On October 10, 2019, U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco granted bail to former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, requiring him to be released on a $1 million bond under home confinement and electronic monitoring.
The 73-year-old Toledo had been held in solitary confinement at ...
by Aleks Kajstura, Legal Director, Prison Policy Initiative
In January, New Jersey became the 7th state to end prison gerrymandering – the practice of using incarcerated people to inflate the population of rural districts. That marks a milestone for criminal justice policy and democracy: over 25% of US residents ...
by David M. Reutter
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held on September 18, 2019 that a guard cannot be held liable under the Constitution for failing to prevent an escape.
In an attempt to apparently commit suicide, Tyson Salters, a pretrial detainee at the Kane County jail in Illinois, ...
by Scott Grammer
joint report published in June 2019by Solitary Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, and the Jesuit Social Research Institute/Loyola University New Orleans discusses the use of solitary confinement by the Louisiana prison system. The report, called “Louisiana on Lockdown,” includes statistics and testimony from more ...
by Scott Grammer
Darryl L. Christensen was a Polk County, Wisconsin jail guard who over the course of three years, between 2011 and 2014, repeatedly sexually assaulted two female prisoners. When this was discovered by jail administrators, Christensen resigned. He pleaded guilty to several counts of sexual assault and will ...
by Ed Lyon
With all of the negative publicity concerning the Maricopa County, Arizona, jails associated with former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the unconstitutional conditions there began under Sheriff-elect Jerry Hill. It was during Hill’s tenure in 1977 that the lawsuit Graves v. Hill ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
Months after the August 2019 death of Jeffrey Epstein, rumors and theories are still circulating that cast doubt on the cause of death.
The 66-year-old billionaire became the center of the nation’s attention after he was arrested July 6, 2019, on new charges of sex trafficking ...
by David M. Reutter
Tobacco is a valuable commodity in jails and prisons because it is considered contraband. Maurice Dewayne Wakefield, II, went to great lengths with a group of prisoners to get another prisoner’s stash of tobacco. The price was a 9 to 18 year sentence.
When prisoner C.S. ...
by David M. Reutter
Michigan’s new approach to dealing with mentally ill prisoners is not only more humane, it is proving to be more effective at reducing recidivism.
When Heidi Washington took over as director of the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) in 2015, she vowed to change the way ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Floyd County, Indiana, jail reached a settlement in July in the death of a prisoner related to opioid withdrawal.
Hanna Robb, 23, was booked into the Floyd County Jail on March 25, 2016, for failure to appear for a misdemeanor theft charge. At her court ...
by David M. Reutter
An Illinois federal district court granted summary judgment to Cook County in a civil rights action alleging a jail policy that limits its pretrial detainees to possession of three books violates the First Amendment.
The case has a “somewhat convoluted procedural history,” having been to the ...
by Kevin Bliss
The federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) came to an agreement September 11, 2019, with Leaman Crews to provide him buprenorphine for opioid use disorder (OUD) during his 36-month prison sentence.
Represented by Lauren Bonds of the Kansas Foundation of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Anthony ...
by Ed Lyon
A lengthy article concerning e-tablets in state prisons was published in the April 2018 issue of PLN (p.44). One of the warnings set out in that article concerned the high fees accompanying apps for those devices. JPay stands out as a major provider of e-tablets, a variant ...
by David M. Reutter
A California federal jury awarded $12,617,674 to a man who suffered brain damage after San Diego County sheriff’s deputies pulled him away from an examining paramedic and hauled him off to jail.
David Collins called 911 on November 18, 2016, while hallucinating in his home. Deputies ...
by David M. Reutter
The April 15, 2018, riot at South Carolina’s Lee Correctional Institution (LCI) illustrates the consequences of prison understaffing. That riot was the worst in America’s prisons in 25 years. The toll was seven dead and 22 injured. The aftermath is at least 18 lawsuits.
LCI, like ...
by David M. Reutter
In an unpublished opinion, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of qualified immunity to guards in a civil rights action alleging they were deliberately indifferent to a pretrial detainees health issues stemming from methadone withdrawal.
The lawsuit was filed by Whitney Foster, who ...
by David M. Reutter
A Florida federal district court denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the Florida Department of Corrections’ (FDOC) policies and practices related to isolation are unconstitutional.
As PLN reported, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed this suit on behalf of five prisoners, and it ...
by David M. Reutter
A Georgia federal district court ordered the Fulton County Sheriff to give more out of cell time and to provide sanitary confinement conditions for women at the South Fulton Municipal Regional Jail.
The court’s order came in a lawsuit brought by the Georgia Advocacy Office, a ...
by Scott Grammer
Massachusetts Democratic Senator and current presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren introduced a plan last June that would essentially ban all government entities, at any level, from contracting with private prison companies.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, another presidential candidate, also favors banning private prisons. If elected president, Sanders ...
by David M. Reutter
Guards at North Carolina’s Wayne County Detention Center (WCDC) abused and beat to death a mentally ill veteran who was arrested for breaking the window out his neighbor’s truck in May 2017, a civil rights complaint alleged.
Graydon “Jerry” Parker, III, 54, served two years in ...
by Matt Clarke
ACLU and Prison Law Office attorneys representing Arizona state prisoners toured the Perryville prison for three days in April 2019, interviewing 25 women who had recently given birth or suffered miscarriages in prison. The report they gave the court describes “shocking and horrifying” stories of a “deficient” ...
by Chad Marks
Mark A. Jaconski was arrested on June 17, 2015, for outstanding traffic warrants and taken to Mercy Hospital for a “fit for confinement” determination. Hospital officials made that determination and Jaconski was transported to the Lincoln County Jail in Missouri.
No mental health screening was done of ...
by Matt Clarke
In September 20, 2019, an Ohio federal court granted preliminary approval of a settlement in a class action lawsuit against Stored Value Cards, Inc., doing business as Numi Financial, and Republic Bank & Trust over jails using their high-fee debit cards to return prisoners’ funds upon release ...
by David M. Reutter
A former Pennsylvania pretrial detainee who sustained serious injuries from a guard’s use of excessive force received a $250,000 settlement.
As guard Christopher Refner was making rounds at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility on June 28, 2016, he smelled marijuana and began to investigate. He determined ...
by Victoria Law, reprinted from Truthout
On December 20, 2019, criminal justice advocates celebrated the news that President Trump signed the Fair Chance Act into law. Tucked into a massive defense spending bill, the law is a federal version of “ban the box,” prohibiting the government and its contractors from ...
by Kevin Bliss
Detainees and prisoners at the Santa Rita Jail (SRJ) in Dublin, California, participated in a peaceful protest over the unsanitary and unconstitutional conditions in the jail. Beginning October 30, 2019, between 300 and 400 prisoners engaged in a six-day hunger strike and work stoppage. They supplied a ...
by Scott Grammer
Sacramento County has two jails, which together house about 3,800 people at any one time. A July 2018 complaint filed in federal court by Lorenzo Mays, Ricky Richardson, Jennifer Bothun, Armani Lee, Leertese Beirge, Cody Garland, and the Prison Law Office and Disability Rights California, claims that ...
by Kevin Bliss
The United States Southern DistrictCourt of New York ruled that Nicole Morrison could proceed with her claim against the U.S. for its negligence in the death of Roberto Grant while in custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), the same prison where Jeffrey Epstein died. “Roberto Grant ...
by David M. Reutter
The former sheriff of Alabama’s Pickens County was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for a scam to defraud a food bank and his church, and pocketing leftover funds to feed detainees.
David Abston was sheriff for 32 years. As allowed by Alabama law, he ...
by Douglas Ankney
President Trump purchased an ad during the February 2 Super Bowl directed at African American voters that depicted black grandmother Alice Johnson in tears, saying, “I’m free to hug my family. I’m free to start over. This is the greatest day of my life ... I want ...
by David M. Reutter
The Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) agreed to pay $850,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging guards murdered a prisoner at Franklin Correctional Institution (FCI).
The suit stemmed from the September 19, 2010, death of Randall Jordan-Aparo. His death was initially covered up by guards, but Aubrey ...
by Matt Clarke
After having most of its defenses rebuked by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, Tulsa County, Oklahoma, opted to settle for $10 million a lawsuit brought by the estate of a jail prisoner who died after police and jail personnel ignored obvious signs of suicidal intent and ...
by David M. Reutter
In November, 2019, PLN was awarded injunctive relief in a lawsuit challenging the Arizona Department of Corrections’ (ADC) “policy prohibiting sexually explicit material” as a violation of the First Amendment.
As we previously reported, ADC censored the October 2104, April 2017, May 2017 and June 2017 ...
by Scott Grammer
GEO Group, a private prison company, had hired Edelman, the world’s largest public relations firm, to improve its public image. But Edelman found itself with a PR problem of its own because of its ties to GEO. The company has contracts from the Trump administration to run ...
Loaded on
March 4, 2020
published in Prison Legal News
March, 2020, page 62
Alaska: Alaska Department of Corrections Commissioner Nancy Dahlstrom told legislators in October 2019 that Alaska would move forward with plans to ship prisoners to prisons in the Lower 48, after reinstating tougher criminal sentences caused a sharp spike in Alaska’s prison population. The Legislature had approved more than $16 million ...
