by Chuck Sharman
On June 24, 2026, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York awarded $3.25 million in damages to former jail detainee Thomas Donohue against Armor Correctional Health, which held the contract at the time of his 2014 incarceration to …
by Chuck Sharman
In March 2026, after what was likely the first-ever civil sanction against a private prison company for spoliation of evidence, CoreCivic settled a suit filed over the suicide of a Brazilian migrant at the company’s Torrance County Detention Facility (TCDF), a lockup operated under contract …
by Chuck Sharman
Long-delayed justice finally arrived for former Alabama prisoner Ervin Harris on June 19, 2026, when a state court tossed his conviction for a November 1974 rape that he has consistently denied committing. The 10th Judicial Circuit Court in Bessemer determined that modern advances in memory …
by Chuck Sharman
With a pair of rulings issued on May 26, 2026, the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) continued to limit the relief offered by Congress to federal prisoners with passage of the First Step Act (FSA) in 2018. That law—signed during the first term of …
by Chuck Sharman
Thousands more Californians arrested every year could be eligible for pretrial release after a ruling by the state Supreme Court on April 30, 2026. Building on an earlier decision banning pretrial detention for lack of cash to post bail, the Court reiterated that arrestees are …
by Chuck Sharman
In a whipsaw series of decisions over two weeks, federal courts first greenlighted and then canceled the execution of condemned Alabama prisoner Jeffery Lee by nitrogen hypoxia, before a divided Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) left to stand a ruling by the U.S. Court …
by Chuck Sharman
With a one-paragraph ruling on June 11, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted summary judgment to defendant officials with the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPSC), relieving them from an order by the U.S. District Court for the …
by Chuck Sharman
In a decision issued on February 25, 2026, the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) affirmed dismissal of an appeal filed by prison profiteer The GEO Group, after a federal district court refused to grant the firm immunity from a suit challenging conditions at a …
by Chuck Sharman
At a settlement conference in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York on March 26, 2026, Cayuga County officials agreed to pay $25,000 to settle claims by a former detainee in the county jail, who said that he was subjected to …
by Chuck Sharman
A study of North Carolina state prisoners published in September 2025 found that those who experienced solitary confinement had a mortality rate over twice as high as those who did not.
The results echo those of a 2020 Danish study, which found that the …
