by Chuck Sharman
In a settlement reached on October 22, 2025, the Arkansas Department of Corrections (DOC) agreed to repatriate a state prisoner shipped to a federal lockup in West Virginia, restoring his job upon return in the law library at the Larry B. Norris Unit outside …
by Chuck Sharman
On September 2, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted class certification to a complaint filed by disabled state prisoner Eugene Westmoreland against Cook County and its Sheriff, Tom Dart. It was at Dart’s jail where Westmoreland claims he …
by Chuck Sharman
“We’re spending millions on prison health care,” Mississippi House Corrections Committee Chairwoman Becky Currie (R-Brookhaven) told Mississippi Today, “and we’re not getting any.”
That charge was made on the news outlet’s political podcast, The Other Side, on November 3, 2025, when …
by Chuck Sharman
Finding that the “library” at Tensas Parish Detention Center (TPDC) “is nothing more than a nominal designation,” the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana granted a prisoner’s request for a preliminary injunction on February 19, 2025, forcing Warden Nolan Bass “to …
by Chuck Sharman
After securing an order for the release of settlement records from Centurion of Florida in a state prisoner’s death, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), nonprofit publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News, was awarded $222,134.84 in legal costs and fees on November …
by Chuck Sharman
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reached a settlement with the Arkansas Division of Correction (DOC) on September 5, 2025, resolving violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12134, at the prison system’s Ouichita River Unit in Malvern. …
by Chuck Sharman
A federal prisoner filed a Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) complaint against the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), which the district court dismissed. Before he got notice of the dismissal, the prisoner was transferred. By the time the notice caught up with him, his appeal …
by Chuck Sharman
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky granted final approval on September 17, 2024, to a $6.49 million settlement of a class-action complaint filed on behalf of almost 600,000 prisoners in four states whose personal information was exposed in a 2022 …
by Chuck Sharman
On March 3, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona granted dismissal to a group of cases filed by federal prisoner Jeremy “Grace” Pinson, 39, after she agreed to accept a $95,000 settlement from the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), resolving …
by Chuck Sharman
In a tough ruling for some California prisoners, the state Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, said on July 28, 2025, that a 2016 voter initiative explicitly authorized the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to award “good time” credits to state prisoners …
