The Tenth Circuit court of appeals has held that a prisoner was entitled to seek enforcement of a two-decade old settlement agreement as a third-party beneficiary and invoke the court's continuing jurisdiction. In 1981, Kenneth Floyd and nine other Colorado state prisoners filed a § 1983 complaint against the Department ...
Scott Lee Martin couldn't help himself. After a decade locked up in a half-dozen federal prisons where snitches, rats, informantsor whatever the regional prison slang calls those who tell on othersare detested, spat upon, beaten, even killed for their acts, Martin decided to become the honorable snitch. "Whether his idiosyncratic ...
The First Circuit court of appeals has held that Title II of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), as applied in this case, abrogates state sovereign immunity. There is now a 6-3 split in the circuits on this issue.
Matthew Kiman, a former New Hampshire state prisoner, suffers from amyotrophic ...
Society is dynamic, in a state of con-stant flux where change is the only constant, but recent changes in Colorado are turning up the pressure in Colorado's prison system. Prisoner pay has been nearly eliminated while hygiene items are not provided. Prisoner phone rates are now in the hands of ...
Mississippi Death Row Conditions Unconstitutional;
Sweeping Reforms Ordered
by Bob Williams
Hailed as the broadest ruling ever is-sued by a federal judge in a death row conditions of confinement case, and a precedent setting breakthrough in prisoners' rights, conditions at Mississippi State Penitentiary Unit 32-C, Parchman Death Row, were found ...
County May Be Liable For Private Prison's Customs And Policies
by Bob Williams
The New Mexico federal district court has held that a county could potentially be liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for the customs and policies of a private prison corporation to whom it had contracted the operation ...
By Bob Williams
The United States District Court for the District of Colorado
rejected a plea for qualified immunity by the Colorado Department of
Corrections (CDOC) over their refusal to transport a Jewish prisoner while
wearing religious Garments.
Russell Boles, an Orthodox Jewish state prisoner at the Fremont
Correctional Facility, ...
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has held that post-judgment attorney fees are compensable under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), though subject to the PLRA's rate cap of $112.50 an hour.
In 1991, Robert Webb, then a prisoner in Idaho's Ada County Jail, brought a §1983 class ...
The PLRA Does Not Change Leave To Amend Rule
by Bob Williams
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has held that the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) does not mandate dismissal of an indigent litigant's deficient complaint without leave to amend, where the amendment would not be futile or inequitable, ...
Retaliatory Prisoner Transfer for Exercising First Amendment Rights is "Adverse Determination" Under the Privacy Act
by Bob Williams
The Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has held that the reclassification and transfer of a federal prisoner in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights constitutes an "adverse determination" under ...
