by Chuck Sharman
When an elderly detainee was released from a two-day stay in the Sacramento County Main Jail on October 7, 2024, a jailer frustrated with her evident mental confusion cursed at her. The detainee, Ourania Thimmhardy, 71, took offense to this. But jailer Matthew Gurich twisted …
by Chuck Sharman
New York was ordered to pay $25,000 to state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) prisoner Patricio Nunez on July 1, 2026, on his claim that guards failed to protect him from a violent attack-from-behind by an unknown fellow prisoner at Sing Sing Correctional …
by Chuck Sharman
On April 3, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon granted dismissal to a complaint filed by the mother of a state prisoner who died by suicide in a solitary confinement cell, after she accepted $2.3 million from the state Department of …
by Chuck Sharman
Under terms of a settlement executed on March 16, 2026, the City of Chicago agreed to pay $13 million to Arnold Day, 63, for the 26 years he spent in Illinois prisons because a now-retired cop with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) had him tortured …
by Chuck Sharman
On June 30, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado dismissed a suit filed over a gruesome death in the Huerfano County Jail, after the Estate of the dead detainee, Michael Burch, accepted a $9.19 million payout from the County, plus another …
by Chuck Sharman
New York’s Onondaga County agreed to pay a former detainee in the County jail $100,000 on March 3, 2026, resolving her claim for denial of medical care during a gruesome 30-hour labor while giving birth to an infant daughter who was then transported to a …
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 …
