Third Circuit Holds PLRA Exhaustion Requirement
an Affirmative Defense
by Bob Williams
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has found that the PLRA's exhaustion requirement is an affirmative defense to be pled by the Defendant. A district court may not dismiss an action on its own for failure to exhaust ...
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the Colorado Federal District Court's permanent injunction directing the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) to provide kosher meals to qualified prisoners in accordance with Orthodox Jewish law and rejected the CDOC's co-pay proposal.
Charles Beerheide, Sheldon Perlman, and Allen Fistell, all prisoners ...
Located in the gently rolling hills of Southern Colorado, dotted with juniper, poplar and cedar trees, Florence is a quiet, small town that was once a prison town without a prison. At just over 5,000 town residents, Florence shares its view of the Sangre de Christo mountain range with its ...
Thaddeus-X Standard Retroactive Except For Qualified Immunity Defense
by Bob Williams
A federal district court in Michigan has held that the Thaddeus-X standard, rather than the "shocks the conscience" standard, is applicable to claims of guard retaliation for prisoners exercising First Amendment rights even when the claims arose prior to ...
In one of the most criticized and widely reported rulings in Colorado history, the state Supreme Court has held that the state's mandatory parole laws do not apply to sex offenders whose crimes were committed on or after July 1, 1993, but before November 1, 1998. Shock waves rippled across ...
In a 54 decision, the United States Supreme Court has decided that a convicted sex offender's Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory selfincrimination is not violated by a treatment program that requires admitting to all past sexual behavior. In a plurality opinion, Justices Kennedy, Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas found that the ...
The Colorado Federal District Court has denied summary judgment for the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) in a suit seeking treatment for a prisoner infected with the hepatitisC virus (HCV). Several prisoner cases were then ordered consolidated. The ruling is one of the first to apply evidentiary rules to internet ...
The Federal District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin has denied a motion for summary judgment finding the Wisconsin Department of Corrections' (WDOC) ban on sexually explicit materials violated prisoners' First Amendment freedom of speech and Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. The Court later approved a class action settlement ...
The Colorado Supreme court has held that prisoners must file a "certificate of review" under Colorado law when suing a licensed professional (LP) for negligence, whether or not the LP is a named party, but that a failure to file the certificate does not require dismissal of claims not based ...
Last summer the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, John Suthers, announced to the Colorado Legislature that Colorado's male prison population is growing at its fastest rate ever. In fact, at an average of 1.3% per month in the second quarter of 1999, the prison population grew at ...
