by Dale Chappell
Lincoln County, Oregon agreed to pay $2.85 million to settle a wrongful death suit filed by the family of a 55-year-old mentally ill prisoner who died of dehydration at the county jail.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in 2016, claimed that jailers had violated Bradley Thomas’ ...
by Dale Chappell
A sua sponte dismissal for lack of jurisdiction by a state Superior Court was improper, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court held on April 19, 2018, when the record was “otherwise devoid” of any indication the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction in the case.
Steve Anctil, a state prisoner, ...
by Dale Chappell
Although prison phone service providers and law enforcement officials won their lawsuit to block the FCC’s $.11-per-minute cap on intrastate (in-state) prison phone calls [see: PLN, July 2017, p.52], states can still lower the rates – to even below $.11 per minute – and some have done ...
by Dale Chappell
For thousands of federal prisoners who have filed for compassionate release after the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) expanded eligibility criteria in 2013, the response has been a familiar and consistent refrain: “Denied.” Over the following four years, just six percent of compassionate release requests were approved out ...
by Dale Chappell
Sussex County, New Jersey, has agreed to pay a former prisoner $150,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging guards at the Keogh-Dwyer Correctional Facility (KDCF) – the county’s jail – put a “hit” on him and had him beaten.
After Robert Woodruff was convicted of burglary and sentenced, ...
by Dale Chappell
An “egregious” lack of medical treatment that resulted in the death of a jail prisoner led Albany County, New York and its private health care contractor to settle a lawsuit filed by the prisoner’s family for over $1 million.
Mark Cannon died in 2014 after he suffered ...
by Dale Chappell
Indiana’s Sex Offender Management and Monitoring (SOMM) program violated the Fifth Amendment by compelling prisoners to incriminate themselves or face longer prison terms, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana held on September 28, 2017.
The ruling was entered in a class-action suit that ...
by Dale Chappell
A group of people who had neither been arrested nor convicted of a crime nevertheless spent two months in county jails – as part of a reality show with hidden cameras, in order to expose the harsh experience of life behind bars.
The revealing program, called “60 ...
by Dale Chappell
The Nevada Department of Corrections has cut the Sagebrush in Prisons program, citing overtime costs and lack of staff oversight, after the federal government withheld funding for the program.
This means the 300,000 sagebrush plants that fire districts were expecting this year will come from other ...
by Dale Chappell
In early 2018, Florida prisoners began a "laydown," a non-violent protest about prison conditions and unpaid "slave labor." The laydowns are to last as long as necessary to get the point across.
Supported by the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee ("IWOC"), the laydown entails a work stoppage, a boycott against commissary, ...
