By Bob Williams
The United States Supreme Court has found prisoners possess a liberty interest in avoiding supermax placement but ruled Ohio’s new classification policy for placing and retaining prisoners in the state’s supermax is constitutional as written. Relief for due process violations under the former written and unwritten policies ...
By Bob Williams
In March 2005, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DORC) announced that Ohio’s 193 death row prisoners would be moved from the Mansfield Correctional Institute (MCI) to the state’s Supermax facility, the Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP), to save millions of dollars.
OSP warden Marc Houk claims ...
Qualified Immunity Denied In Failure To
Protect And Delay of Emergency Treatment
by Bob Williams
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that guards are not entitled to qualified immunity for failing to segregate co-defendants in a known hostile relationship and that doctors are not entitled to qualified immunity ...
Absolute Immunity For Acting On Court Order Denied
In Failure To Protect Claim
by Bob Williams
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the denial of absolute immunity against prison guards who claimed they were following a court order when they failed to protect a known prison informant, even ...
A Denver Federal Judge has awarded $10,000 plus costs and attorney fees to a state prisoner whose sexually explicit magazines were confiscated for content reasons.
Michael Milligan, a prisoner in the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC), was transferred without warning from the medium security Fremont Correctional Facility (FCF) to the ...
The federal district court in Kansas has awarded a state prisoner $45,000 plus $30,913.90 for attorney fees and expenses in an excessive force claim brought against three prison guards. The court also denied qualified immunity, found expert witnesses were not required in examining excessive force claims, and found liability in ...
Administrative Remedies Deemed Unavailable Based On Physical Injury
By Bob Williams
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that administrative remedies are unavailable when a prisoner has a physical injury which prevents filing a grievance and a subsequently filed grievance is then rejected as untimely.
Frank Days slipped and ...
Ruling 6-5 en banc in a case of first impression, the Eleventh Circuit has found that Georgia sheriffs act as "arms of the state" and thus as state actors are entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity from civil liability for money damages. This decision was limited only to the development and ...
Mailbox Rule Applied To Administrative
Forfeiture Proceeding
by Bob Williams
In a case of first impression, the Third Circuit has held that the mailbox rule applies to administrative forfeiture proceedings. The Court also held that the failure to apply the mailbox rule rendered the forfeiture voidable, rather than void, enhancing ...
Wisconsin Contract for Faith-Based Program
Does Not Violate First Amendment
by Bob Williams
A Wisconsin federal district court has found that a state Department of Corrections (WDOC) contract with a faith-based addiction recovery program does not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. This decision was later affirmed by ...
