by Chuck Sharman
A jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana returned a verdict on April 2, 2025, awarding $27.75 million in damages to former state prisoner Nathaniel Lake, after finding that staff of private prison giant CoreCivic failed to protect him from a …
by Chuck Sharman
In a ruling on August 15, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit offered important guidance for prisoners relying on expert medical testimony, affirming dismissal of claims by North Carolina prisoner Manuel Moreno for neglect he suffered while incarcerated. The U.S. …
by Chuck Sharman
In January 2025, at the conclusion of a year-long investigation into the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center (ASGDC) in South Carolina’s Richland County, the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) reported that it found “reasonable cause to believe that ASGDC violates the Eighth and Fourteenth …
by Chuck Sharman
When Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) guards failed to provide prisoner Jess Richard Smith with the required notice of his disciplinary sanction, he didn’t serve it—and a DOC hearing officer meted out additional punishment, accusing Smith of attempting to play “both sides of the line” …
by Chuck Sharman
It took over 15 months, but PLN finally received documentation that the Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) paid $5,000 to state prisoner James Spann to settle claims that he was retaliated against by Jefferson City Correctional Center guards for filing grievances.
As PLN reported, …
by Chuck Sharman
Under an agreement signed on September 17, 2025, California’s Ventura County agreed to pay $8.5 million to Patricia and Anthony Garcia, the wife and son of Tony Garcia, 70, who was murdered by a fellow detainee at the County’s Todd Road Jail (TRJ) in …
by Chuck Sharman
Tackling the pernicious practice of using prepaid debit cards to return funds seized from prisoners upon their release—and then eating up the balance with fees—the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), the nonprofit publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News, has filed several lawsuits. Two have …
by Chuck Sharman
On February 13, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois approved an $11 million settlement agreement between DuPage County and the Estate of Reyneda Aguilar-Hurtado, a detainee who died in the County jail in Wheaton in June 2023.
A mother …
by Chuck Sharman
Susie Annie Balfour, who spent 33 years incarcerated at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility (CMCF) before her 2021 release, died on August 5, 2025, the victim of metastatic breast cancer that she blamed on exposure to toxic chemicals in cleaning agents she was forced to use …
by Chuck Sharman
The federal government’s immunity from lawsuits for damages might provide cover for mistreating prisoners to any employee of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), if it wasn’t for a decades-old decision by the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) in Carlson v. Green, 446 …
