by Chuck Sharman
On March 9, 2026, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri awarded a total of $667,000 to a group of Muslim state prisoners pepper-sprayed by Department of Corrections (DOC) guards while engaged in religious prayer at the Eastern Reception, …
by Chuck Sharman
A $950,000 settlement received approval from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on January 28, 2026, resolving claims against the City of Norfolk by the Estate of Philemon S. Vinson, alleging that his suicide in the city lockup should have been …
by Chuck Sharman
The Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) of Massachusetts approved a settlement on March 9, 2026, resolving a lawsuit filed the month before by members of a nonprofit advocating for incarcerated voter rights and a pair of recently released state prisoners, who accused Secretary of the Commonwealth …
by Chuck Sharman
On December 1, 2025, the Chief Executive of Ohio’s Cuyahoga County put the last signature on a resolution authorizing a $1 million payout to settle claims filed by the estate of Nicholas Michael Colbert, a detainee who committed suicide at the County lockup in Cleveland …
by Chuck Sharman
A state court in New York granted class certification on February 16, 2026, to a suit challenging suspension of the state’s Humane Alternatives to Long Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act in prisons operated by the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS). However, the …
by Chuck Sharman
On March 13, 2026, lawmakers sitting on Idaho’s Joint Legislative Oversight Committee (JLOC) ordered the state Office of Performance Evaluation (OPE) to assess state prison officials’ response to allegations of staff sexual misconduct. The move came on the heels of a damning report by Investigate …
by Chuck Sharman
The story repeats with depressing regularity. It begins with a man struggling with drug dependency, acquired from a prescription for pain medication. Depressed, he makes suicidal threats. His frightened partner calls sheriff’s deputies. They take him to the county lockup. There, his family blithely trusts …
by Chuck Sharman
Former Ohio prisoner Ronald Ayers was awarded $1,000 by the state Supreme Court on June 18, 2025, when it found that an official with the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) wrongly denied his public records request, granting a writ of mandamus ordering her …
by Chuck Sharman
When Ladarion Hughes struck a plea deal and was sentenced to time served in December 2021, he had been held over two years since his July 2019 arrest, mostly in Texas’ Smith County Jail, except for a brief stay in a state psychiatric hospital. Yet …
by Chuck Sharman
Missouri has made clear its disregard for its state prisoners as much through what it doesn’t do as what it does, according to new research that found dozens of unreported deaths, as well as a pending suit in state court challenging excessive heat in solitary …
