[See update at end of article]
by David M. Reutter
On May 22, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the grant of summary judgment to Defendant officials at Georgia’s Walker State Prison (WSP), where a prisoner accused them of deliberate indifference to his seizure condition ...
by David M. Reutter
A lawsuit filed in federal court for the Western District of Arkansas on January 13, 2023, makes a stunning claim: That a man was left to starve to death in jail because he couldn’t afford bail.
Larry Eugene Price, Jr.,50, was suffering an acute mental health ...
by David M. Reutter
On April 13, 2023, the Supreme Court of Florida directed its Clerk to “reject any future pleadings or other requests for relief” submitted by state prisoner Daryl A. Sanders, “unless such filings are signed by a member in good standing of The Florida Bar.”
Sanders is ...
by David Reutter
On March 13, 2023, the federal court for the Southern District of Georgia denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a guard for private prison giant CoreCivic, alleging she was unconstitutionally strip-searched at Wheeler Correctional Facility (WCF).
“Though Defendants attempt to parse the definition ...
by David Reutter
A California Superior Court on December 9, 2022, preliminarily approved a $155 million settlement for about 10,000 current and retired supervising state prison guards in a long-running lawsuit alleging the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) failed to pay supervisors for time worked pre- and post-shift. ...
by David M. Reutter
On December 15, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed denial of qualified immunity (QI) to Illinois jail guards who relied upon a nurse’s claim that a detainee was faking his medical condition, which then proved fatal. The estate of Michael Carter, ...
by David M. Reutter
In a maddening decision issued on January 31, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed the denial of qualified immunity (QI) to four guards from Arkansas’s Benton County Detention Center (BCDC), in a lawsuit accusing them of deliberate indifference to the serious ...
by David M. Reutter
On May 20, 2021, a Florida jury awarded $1.4 million to Bradford County Jail guard Clinton Jenkins, 53. The jury’s award was based on its finding that the truck driver who crashed into Jenkin’s jail transport was negligent and liable for the crash and Jenkins’ significant ...
by David M. Reutter
A settlement approved by the federal court for the Eastern District of California on January 16, 2024, recalls an all-too familiar jail story. A wheelchair-bound detainee named Gregory Cantu was denied anti-seizure medication after arriving at Kings County Jail in Hanford on a probation violation. Despite ...
by David M. Reutter
On January 16, 2024, Maine’s Superior Court for Kennebec County ordered state officials to pay $130,600.02 in attorney fees and legal costs to PLN’s publisher, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), after making a rare finding that the officials exercised bad faith in repeatedly denying the ...
