by Chuck Sharman
New York City has reached nearly $5.2 million in settlements resolving two suits that accused staffers at the Rikers Island jail complex of ignoring detainees suffering fatal methadone overdoses. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an order on May …
by Chuck Sharman
On February 17, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland granted dismissal to the mother of a detainee who committed suicide five years earlier at the Dorchester County Detention Center (DCDC), after she accepted $1 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit …
by Chuck Sharman
A Pennsylvania judge vacated the murder convictions of Jermal Shuler, Marc Brittingham and Rasheed Smith on May 26, 2026, after they spent 28 years in state prisons for the brutal 1997 killing of Essie Thomas, 73, in her Philadelphia home.
The Conviction Integrity Unit …
by Chuck Sharman
On April 14, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana granted the latest in a series of extensions that have added more than 17 years to a settlement agreement in which the Monroe County Sheriff promised to alleviate overcrowding causing unsafe …
by Chuck Sharman
The Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) announced new procedures on March 18, 2026, to “strengthen suicide prevention, clinical coordination, and safety operations across the correctional system.” The changes came in response to an audit ordered after a spate of six prisoner suicides in 2025; the …
by Chuck Sharman
After more than two decades of wrongful incarceration, Texas state prisoner Carmen Mejia, 54, was exonerated and released from the Travis County Correctional Complex by the state Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) on March 11, 2026. Two days earlier, Travis County District Court Judge P. …
by Chuck Sharman
In a report issued on February 20, 2026, Geogia’s Fulton County and Sheriff Pat Labatt touted improvements made at the County lockup in Atlanta since entering a consent decree a year earlier with the federal Department of Justice (DOJ). The claims were issued in response …
by Chuck Sharman
On February 17, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned a lower court’s grant of qualified immunity (QI) to three North Carolina prison guards who allegedly failed to keep a prison door closed—because they found doing so too inconvenient—thereby allowing a …
by Chuck Sharman
On March 23, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina approved a $3.8 settlement paid by Richland County for the death of Lason Butler, during his incarceration in the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center (ASGDC). Despite evident symptoms of a mental …
by Chuck Sharman
Incarcerated in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex to await sentencing, 19-year-old Christopher M. recalled that he was not mistreated, with “regular access to daily schooling, religious services, organized recreational outlets, including a basketball team, unrestricted bathroom access, and liberal access to telephones,” …
