by Dale Chappell
Allegheny County, Pennsylvania has settled a lawsuit over lack of adequate care by Corizon Health, the medical contractor at the county’s jail, for failing to feed a prisoner, which led him to go into cardiac arrest, according to court records.
The prisoner, Christopher Wallace, was arrested on ...
by Dale Chappell
A former guard at the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City has filed a lawsuit in state court exposing misconduct and cover-ups by staff. A subsequent report by the city’s Department of Investigation (DOI) confirmed evidence of cover-ups of over a thousand prisoner fights in ...
by Dale Chappell
Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) medical director, Dr. Julia Barnett, was terminated on April 18, 2019 because she “failed to exercise sound clinical judgment and failed to provide adequate medical care” to prisoners at the Monroe Correctional Complex (MCC), resulting in the deaths of several prisoners.
Barnett ...
by Dale Chappell
A jail guard who ran and hid when a prisoner he was watching grabbed his gun and terrorized a hospital was a “feckless coward,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said, but nevertheless held on September 18, 2019, that he was entitled ...
by Dale Chappell
Overturning the convictions of five defendants, the Third Appellate District Court of Appeal in Sacramento, California held on June 11, 2019 that Proposition 64’s decriminalization of possession of less than an ounce of marijuana also applied to possession in a state prison.
The five defendants, separately convicted ...
by Dale Chappell
In a case that demonstrates exactly why the First Step Act included much-needed changes for compassionate release for federal prisoners, the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana granted immediate release to a terminally ill, wheelchair-bound prisoner after the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) rejected his ...
by Dale Chappell
The Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit by providing lifesaving treatment to thousands of prisoners with hepatitis C (HCV), which will cost the state at least $41 million. [See: PLN, June 2019, p.44].
The suit, filed by the ACLU of ...
by Dale Chappell and Douglas Ankney
As of late July 2019, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had released over 3,000 prisoners under the First Step Act, a landmark criminal justice reform measure signed in December 2018 by President Trump. [See: PLN, April 2019, p.1; Jan. 2019, p ...
by Dale Chappell
A sleeping guard at the Lancaster County jail in South Carolina, who was supposed to be watching a suicidal prisoner who killed himself, prompted the county to settle a wrongful death suit for $507,500.
When Randy Stevens’ friend called 911 in May 2014 because Stevens was ...
by Dale Chappell
A man held at the Lauderdale County jail in Mississippi for failure to register as a sex offender settled a federal lawsuit over permanent injuries he received when he was “jumped” by other prisoners while guards failed to stop the attack.
Jarrett R. Nelson was booked into ...
