by Chuck Sharman
On June 22, 2022, San Diego County agreed to pay $8.1 million to settle claims that a deputy outside a county jail chased a fleeing detainee and fatally shot him in the back. It was the largest payout for a wrongful death by the county …
by Chuck Sharman
When his death warrant expired at 12:01 a.m. on September 23, 2022, condemned Alabama prisoner Alan Eugene Miller was still alive, capping a wild few days during which his execution was stayed by a federal judge and then reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court before …
by Chuck Sharman
A diminutive detainee who was deaf and communicated by sign language was found unresponsive at Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center early on October 9, 2022. Officials from the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) have since announced that the death of …
by Chuck Sharman
On December 30, 2021, a second suit was filed in Oregon state court accusing former state youth worker Frank Milligan of sexually assaulting a juvenile detainee. Milligan, 53, was imprisoned for 30 years in 2001 for sexually abusing and attempting to murder another boy. He …
By Chuck Sharman
On September 2, 2022, the federal court for the Northern District of Georgia accepted an amended complaint from a former detainee in the Clayton County Jail who spent 13 hours in labor there because jailers allegedly thought her infant would be stillborn. Only when Tiana …
by Chuck Sharman
On June 27, 2022, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), the nonprofit that publishes PLN, filed suit in federal court for the Northern District of Indiana under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, accusing St. Joseph County Sheriff William J. Redman of violating the firm’s First …
by Jory Smith and Chuck Sharman
On February 22, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a writ of certiorari to hear an appeal by an impoverished New York sex offender who was forced to remain in prison two years after his release because state restrictions made …
On May 10, 2022, the New Jersey Supreme Court reversed a state parole board decision and granted release to Sundiata Acoli, whose involvement with a radical group that advocated overthrow of the U.S. government was repeatedly cited to keep him incarcerated for nearly a half century. In doing so, …
By Chuck Sharman
On April 26, 2022, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva walked back comments made at a press conference hours earlier, when he suggested a journalist was under investigation for covering a leaked video showing one of his deputies kneeling on a restrained detainee’s head.
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By Chuck Sharman
Roughly one-third of the U.S. supply of Paxlovid, an antiviral pill to fight COVID-19, were still sitting unused on April 26, 2022, according to the New York Times. But few if any of those 630,000 doses were destined for prisons, despite seeming “tailor-made” for …
