by Dale Chappell
Finding that qualified immunity prevented a lawsuit against a jailer who failed to notify a receiving jail that a prisoner was at-risk for suicide and he killed himself at that jail, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed the denial of summary judgment to ...
by Dale Chappell
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a report and warning in March 2021 to GEO Group for misuse and abuse of a disinfectant at its ICE Processing Center in Adelanto, California. The report says that GEO was applying HQD Neutral in a manner that was in violation of ...
by Dale Chappell
Over five years ago, federal prosecutors in Kansas used recordings of attorney visits and phone calls to obtain convictions in numerous criminal cases. The recordings were made by a private prison in Leavenworth owned by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA, which has since changed its name to ...
by Dale Chappell
A federal judge has rejected attempts by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to keep videos of staff force-feeding a prisoner on a hunger strike at the Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence, Colorado, after the BOP had claimed a “law enforcement” exception under the Freedom of ...
by Dale Chappell
A 2020 annual report on exonerations, released by the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE) on March 30, 2021, shows the disturbing fact that in more than half of the cases where those convicted of crimes were exonerated, misconduct by police and other government personnel accounted for thousands ...
by Dale Chappell
It’s no secret that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) has neither sped up the death penalty nor prevented terrorism. What continues to surprise many is that this much-criticized law has somehow survived, despite countless judges recounting their frustration with it. Indeed, it has survived ...
by Dale Chappell
In a federal appellate court filing on August 20, 2020, nearly five years after a federal judge ordered officials to stop recording privileged calls between attorneys and their clients waiting for trial at the Leavenworth Detention Center (LDC) in Kansas, the U.S. government refused to comply with ...
by Dale Chappell
If you’re one of the millions of Americans with a conviction barring you from serving jury duty in your state, maybe it’s not one of the rights you lost that you miss. After all, many people aren’t disappointed when they’re skipped for jury duty.
But state laws ...
by Dale Chappell
A new watchdog nonprofit in New Mexico is focusing on exposing the culture of secrecy in the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD), which the group says interferes with the ability to monitor civil rights violations against prisoners.
Called the New Mexico Prison and Jails Project (PJP), it ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri entered an order on November 12, 2020, finding that Missouri’s parole system was unconstitutional, handing down a laundry list of corrections needed.
The problem was Missouri’s handling of parole revocation proceedings, which the Court said violated parolees’ ...
