by Douglas Ankney

“I was young. I couldn’t pay for my ankle monitor. I went to jail because I couldn’t pay for my ankle monitor. And then they let me back out again on my ankle monitor that I couldn’t pay for.”—Dante Bristow, 23, who was arrested in Kansas at ...

by Paul Wright

Since our inception in 1990 the Human Rights Defense Center has focused on the financial exploitation of prisoners and their families in particular and poor people in general by the American criminal justice system. A sad commentary on the state of political affairs in the USA today ...

by Douglas Ankney

On June 3, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit declined to join most sister circuits, which admit evidentiary challenges to class certification of a lawsuit. The Court called admissibility a “red herring” at such an early stage—before proceeding to find other reasons ...

by Kevin W. Bliss

On November 14, 2024, Florida’s Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by officials with the state Department of Corrections (DOC) to an appellate court ruling that exempted crimes of “attempt” from those that ban prisoners from being considered for incentive “gain time” sentence credits.

At issue was ...

On September 28, 2024, the U.S. Senate passed legislation enhancing penalties for contraband cellphone possession in federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) lockups. Named after BOP Lt. Osvaldo Albarati, who was killed in a 2013 ambush arranged with contraband cellphones by prisoners at BOP’s Metropolitan Detention Center in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, ...

Over a five-year stint working in Los Angeles County’s jail system, Dr. Mark Bunin Benor saw hundreds of detainees with Hepatitis-C who were not being treated. In an article published by the Los Angeles Times on April 2, 2024, Benor said that jail officials were still not doing enough to ...

Getting a green light from the United States Court of Appeals in the Eleventh Circuit, Alabama used nitrogen gas to kill prisoner Carey Dale Grayson, 50, on November 21, 2024. He told William C. Holman Correctional Facility Warden Terry Raybon to “fuck off” before the gas started flowing, using the ...

A new program is preparing some Washington state prisoners to become wildland firefighters after release. Though launched only recently, ARC 20 traces its roots to “honor camps” that state lawmakers established in 1939 to clear and maintain land owned by the state or counties.

ARC 20, based in Spokane, recruits ...

On March 5, 2024, the federal court for the Western District of Pennsylvania agreed to dismiss the complaint of a state prisoner held in solitary confinement for 15 years after the state Department of Corrections (DOC) reportedly agreed to a settlement. Under its terms, Caine Pelzer, 45, returned to the ...

by Matt Clarke

On July 9, 2024, the grandmother of a mentally ill detainee who died of dehydration at Texas’ Denton County Jail (DCJ) filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, accusing jail staff of deliberate indifference in allowing Heath Aaron Vandeventer to suffer severe dehydration and malnutrition before he perished ...

On December 23, 2024, outgoing Pres. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D) commuted the sentences of all but three federal prisoners facing execution. The 37 prisoners receiving commutations will now serve life in custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) without possibility of parole, which was abolished decades ago for ...

by Douglas Ankney

In 2016, University of Michigan Professor Heather Ann Thompson published Blood in the Water, a book about the 1971 uprising at New York’s Attica State Prison that claimed the lives of 33 prisoners and 10 guards. The book received numerous awards, including the 2016 Bancroft Prize and ...

Surveillance video from Ohio’s Montgomery County Jail surfaced from an unidentified source in early June 2024, showing the last hours before 19-year-old Isaiah Trammell died in custody in March 2023. As PLN reported, he died three days after transport to a hospital with what Sheriff Rob Streck called a self-inflicted ...

The Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Waseca, a women’s prison on the former campus of a University of Minnesota technical school, was locked down for over two weeks after a mass drug overdose sent prisoners to a local hospital on September 4, 2024. The low-security prison was already under scrutiny ...

Virginia Department of Corrections (DOC) prisoners Ekong Eshiet, 28, and Trevaun Brown, 23, lit themselves on fire at Red Onion State Prison on September 15, 2024, demanding an end to deprivations including lengthy solitary confinement. Both were transferred to the University of Virginia hospital and treated for extensive third-degree burns. ...

by Douglas Ankney

On June 6, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit released a mandate it earlier withheld, which in turn ordered the release of Louisiana prisoner Samuel K. Galbraith—nearly eight years after he was originally granted parole. However, the Court had subsequently withdrawn the opinion ...

On October 4, 2024, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) announced that the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) was canceling nearly $13 million in debt owed for unpaid supervision and drug-testing fees by 6,715 former state prisoners currently on parole.

The move came just days after a ...

With a law signed by Gov. Jim Pillen (R) in April 2024, Nebraska became the first state to adopt a model program for diverting military veterans from jail into programs offering treatment for the issues underlying their arrest.

When LB253 takes effect on July 1, 2025, it will expand programs ...

by David M. Reutter

On November 12, 2024, the federal court for the Eastern District of California entered judgment in favor of state prisoner Anthony Penton, adding $788,744.97 to an earlier $475,000 jury award on his claim that a guard violated his civil rights by withholding his mail without notice ...

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has been buying a drug used to execute condemned prisoners from a compounding pharmacy with a history of safety violations, according to an investigation reported by NPR News on July 10, 2024.

After major pharmaceutical companies refused to participate in executions, TDCJ turned ...

by Douglas Ankney

On February 5, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment to Defendant Hawaii Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) officials accused by prisoner Dewitt Lamar Long of violating his First Amendment right to free exercise of his Muslim ...

The commissary operated in San Diego County jails collected enough revenue from detainee purchases to pump up the balance in its Incarcerated Persons’ Welfare Fund (IPWF) to $11.1 million by June 30, 2024. But the office of Sheriff Kelly A. Martinez provided few details about fund spending, which state Penal ...

by Matt Clarke

On October 7, 2024, the federal court for the Southern District of Texas refused a motion by Defendant Harris County Jail officials in Houston to fully dismiss claims made by two Plaintiffs who intervened in a massive suit filed after 27 jail detainees died or were severely ...

Pre-trial detainees found not criminally responsible in Maine are being quietly transferred from the state’s Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta to Columbia Regional Care Center, a South Carolina psychiatric lockup owned by Wellpath, Inc. Wellpath has filed for federal bankruptcy court protection, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, ...

by David M. Reutter

On May 15, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed summary judgment on a New York prisoner’s First Amendment free exercise claim while also affirming a jury’s verdict finding continuous lighting in his cell did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. ...

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) was on the hot seat after an investigation published in the New York Times on July 2, 2024, revealed that nearly a third of physicians hired by the prison system over the past decade had faced censure before their employment for medical errors or ...

On May 20, 2024, a federal jury in Alabama returned a verdict against a doctor employed by Wexford Health Sources, Inc., the private medical provider contracted by the state Department of Corrections (DOC). It was part of a civil rights action brought by a prisoner who suffered medical neglect that ...

Starting November 1, 2024, prisoners held by the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) stopped getting physical mail, which is now diverted to Baltimore for electronic scanning by private contractor TextBehind. Printed copies of the scans—complete with all the errors that go along with the technology—are then shipped to prisons for ...

On November 11, 2024, Wellpath Holdings, Inc., and its affiliated corporate entities filed for bankruptcy protection in United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Wellpath is a private, for-profit medical and mental health care provider at approximately 420 detention facilities in 39 states; as PLN readers know, ...

On March 20, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed dismissal of an Islamic prisoner’s federal civil rights lawsuit accusing West Virginia Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) officials of violating his rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), ...

Terry Williams, the father of a murdered Alabama prisoner, was reportedly left “speechless” in late October 2024 after an Elmore County grand jury refused to indict his son’s alleged attacker, another prisoner identified as “X.” Just a year earlier, Daniel Terry Williams, 22, was brutally tortured and raped over several ...

Entering a guilty plea in federal court for the Southern District of Indiana on October 15, 2024, former Henry County Jail guard Curtis Lavon Doughty, 27, admitted using excessive force against a compliant detainee in an incident the previous year.

Doughty was guarding detainees that were herded in the jail ...

Pigeonly, Inc., a prison communication startup founded by former prisoner Frederick Hutson, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 26, 2024, in United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada in Las Vegas.

Pigeonly contracts with jails and prisons to provide mail services for prisoners for a fee. ...

On September 11, 2024, several prisoners began a hunger strike at the Federal Prison Camp (FPC) in Montgomery, Alabama, protesting a frustrating lack of clarity about their release dates fully six years after the First Step Act of 2018 laid out procedures for calculation. It is unknown exactly how long ...

On August 27, 2024, the federal court for the Western District of Pennsylvania closed a suit against Fayette County Prison (FCP) officials after they reported reaching a resolution with former detainee Chad St. Clair. That followed a year after the Court adopted a magistrate’s report and recommendation (R&R) on August ...

On June 18, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the conviction of a private prison transport driver for violating the civil rights of detainees. Anthony Buntyn, 56, a former driver for private prison transport firm Prisoner Transportation Services (PTS) of America, was convicted by ...

Sheriff Jack Campbell (R) retired from his duties for Illinois’ Sangamon County on August 31, 2024, following pressure from Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) over a fatal shooting involving Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson, 30, who was charged with murder for killing Sonya Massey, 36.

The incident occurred on July 6, 2024, ...

by Matt Clarke

On June 3, 2024, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (DCRR) was ordered to implement a pilot program that would immediately bring two state prison complexes up to medical staffing levels recommended by experts appointed by the federal court for the District of Arizona. It ...

A backlog in court-ordered psychological evaluations had stranded 136 South Carolina detainees in jail by the end of September 2024, nearly 40% of them held over 120 days. Waiting on admission to the state’s forensic psychiatric hospital, some had spent as long as eight months in jail, making their mental ...

In a bizarre case of Orwellian government overreach, the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) reincarcerated former state prisoner Terri Lee Brown for a parole violation after her parole ended. But on May 8, 2024, the Oregon Supreme Court slapped the state’s hand and ordered her release. The Court held that ...

by Douglas Ankney

On April 4, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed denial of qualified immunity (QI) to defendant Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) guards in a transgender prisoner’s claims that they subjected her to retaliation and unreasonable search in violation of her First and ...

In 2022, the City of New York passed a law opening a two-year “lookback window” for victims of gender-motivated violence, including sexual abuse, to file lawsuits over incidents that were no longer within the statute of limitations. In April 2024, some 150 people sued for abuse they suffered at juvenile ...

Progress House Association (PHA), the sole reentry center in Washington’s Pierce County, ended its contract with the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) on June 30, 2024. Founded by the late Rev. Leo C. Brown Jr., PHA served the formerly incarcerated for over 50 years before CEO Cynthia Fedrick (Brown’s daughter) ...

A report published by Oregon Capital Chronicle on November 11, 2024, noted that former state prisoner Jacqueline Orr, 57, still suffers the effects of a brain injury incurred during her incarceration—walking “gingerly” while “clutching a cane” through a home in which the lighting has been dimmed because it “can hurt ...

by David M. Reutter

On May 8, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit clarified the standards to determine whether Baltimore County prisoners are considered employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. § 203, when working in a recycling facility overseen by the County Department ...

by Anthony W. Accurso

A study released in March 2024 by the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) found that incidence of childhood trauma was higher among state prisoners than those not incarcerated. The rate rose even further when limited to prisoners subjected to discipline. For women prisoners, it was higher ...

by Douglas Ankney

On December 8, 2023, the Indiana city of Elkhart agreed to pay former state prisoner Andrew Royer, then 44, nearly $12 million to settle a lawsuit filed over his wrongful murder conviction and subsequent 17 years of unjustified imprisonment.

In October 2023, Royer filed a 42 U.S.C. ...

Drawing from a research database of commissary pricing and markups culled from 26 state prison systems, a report published by The Appeal on April 17, 2024, found commissary prices “up to five times higher than in the community,” with markups reaching 600%.

To supplement paltry and unappetizing chow hall meals, ...

by Sam Rutherford

On April 11, 2024, the Supreme Court of Washington held that the one-year statute of limitations (SOL) for bringing a lawsuit under the state Public Records Act (PRA), RCW 42.56.001, et seq., begins on the date that a state agency issues a final, determinative response to a ...

Shawn “Mickey” Stines, 43, the former Sheriff of Kentucky’s Letcher County, was indicted by a grand jury on November 21, 2024, for the murder of state District Judge Kevin Mullins. The 54-year-old judge and then-Sheriff Stines had just finished lunch with a group on September 19, 2024, when they returned ...

On July 8, 2024, the Supreme Court of Michigan held that imposing a new restitution obligation—by retroactive application of restitution statutes enacted after a criminal defendant committed his underlying offense—could nevertheless happen during a resentencing hearing, without violating the ex post facto clauses of either the state or federal constitutions. ...

On October 7, 2024, the South Dakota Department of Corrections (DOC) announced the results of searches conducted during a nearly three-week lockdown begun at the state penitentiary on September 15, 2024. During that time all visitation was suspended for its 1,262 prisoners, except for prisoner meetings with their attorneys and ...

Rapper Yak Gotti, whose real name is Deamonte Kendrick, 32, was stabbed in the south annex of Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail on December 1, 2024, during a racketeering trial involving fellow rapper Young Thug—real name Jeffrey Lamar Williams, 33—and four others. Earlier in what has become Georgia’s longest trial in ...

On November 27, 2024, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held the city Department of Correction (DOC) in contempt of a consent decree and subsequent remedial orders entered in a long-running class action challenging what the Court described as the DOC’s “pattern and practice ...

In a letter received in August 2024, Michigan state prisoner John Patrick Moore II notified PLN about three successful lawsuits he filed against the state Department of Corrections (DOC) which resulted in settlement agreements.

In an important case, Moore challenged a prison policy that allowed Muslim prisoners to wear kufi ...

At Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, Maryland’s primary secure psychiatric facility, a team from the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors arrived on October 8, 2024, to conduct a two-day evaluation of processes, policies and procedures in the wake of a top-level staff shakeup after former CEO Dr. ...

Thirty years later, 1994’s Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (VCCLEA) is still criticized by progressive politicians for stoking mass incarceration in the United States. Others, like former Pres. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D)—who co-sponsored the bill as a Senator from Delaware—point to the sharp drop in crime rates ...

On June 3, 2024, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed HB 1054 into law, extending the life of a Legislative Oversight Committee to enforce jail standards in the state, while also letting a companion Legislative Oversight Commission on jail standards die at the end of June 2024.

The devil was ...

On November 19, 2024, prison telecom Securus Technologies, Inc., along with subsidiary JPay, notified users of services provided by the firms at prisons and jails of steps being taken to comply with a recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) order. As PLN reported, that August 2024 order capped phone rates at ...

On November 18, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued two orders denying motions filed by Securus Technologies, LLC, and Pay Tel Communications, Inc., seeking to stay implementation of a rule recently adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which capped the amount both companies ...

Georgia Department of Corrections (DOC) prisoner Asaad Amir Hasuan, 43—also known as “Dante Frederick”—was indicted by a federal grand jury in Delaware on November 14, 2024, for allegedly scamming at least $3.5 million from friends and loved ones of fellow prisoners to whom he gave bogus promises to provide physical ...

Voters in Michigan’s Monroe County returned Mark Brant to the County Commission on November 5, 2024—most not knowing that he was due to report to federal prison. Brant, 68, was sentenced to an 18-month term in federal court for the Northern District of Ohio on September 11, 2024, for leasing ...

Since 2022, New York City’s Department of Correction (DOC) has warned that its Rikers Island jail complex was swamped with letters soaked in fentanyl and other contraband drugs. As a result, DOC officials called to follow the state and numerous other prison and jail systems across the country in replacing ...

A Georgia Sheriff who sent deputies to a local Burger King when displeased with its service endured weeks of taunts on his department’s Facebook page in October 2024. It was then that Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens, Sr. (D) blocked the page’s comments section to David Cavender, his Republican challenger, ...

Australia: Brisbane Correctional Center prisoner Jack James Peterson, 29, was sentenced to an additional 18 months in January 2023 for assaulting a guard with a squash racket, the Courier reported. Peterson struck the unnamed 34-year-old during a confrontation involving a riot response team, leaving him with a forehead contusion and ...

On October 9, 2024, Turn Key Health Clinics ended its contract to provide healthcare at the Oklahoma County Jail in Oklahoma City. The firm gave notice 30 days earlier, after winning just a one-year $7.4 million extension to the contract it has held since 2018; Turn Key wanted a longer ...