The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (NMFOG) has filed an enforcement complaint under the state Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) against the Bernalillo County Board of Commissioners, seeking release of video and other records from the County’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), as well as a declaration whether …
The city of Durham, North Carolina agreed on May 20, 2024, to pay $7.75 million to resolve the wrongful conviction claim of exonerated prisoner Darryl Howard. He spent almost 24 years in prison before a federal jury agreed that former Durham cop Darrell Dowdy improperly manipulated evidence used to …
In November 2024, a Massachusetts jury awarded $13 million to former state prisoner Michael Sullivan, 64, as compensation for his wrongful conviction for a 1986 armed robbery and murder. Sullivan’s case involved false laboratory test results, as well as a prosecutorial plea bargain that obtained false testimony from the …
by David M. Reutter
On February 14, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a lower court’s denial of qualified immunity (QI) to James LeBlanc, Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPSC), in a lawsuit alleging he was liable for …
by David M. Reutter
In two recent cases, federal courts have granted orders to seize funds from prisoners after sizable balances in their canteen accounts came to prosecutors’ attention.
In federal court for the Western District of Michigan on August 19, 2021, Judge Janet T. Neff granted …
by David M. Reutter
On February 22, 2022, an inspector appointed by the federal court for the Western District of Tennessee reported that the Shelby County Jail remained understaffed even as a surge in bookings drove up the number of prisoners and detainees held there, frustrating efforts to …
by David M. Reutter
On December 29, 2021, the Court of Appeal for the First District of California decided that a “bail bond premium financing agreement” is a consumer credit contract and, under California Civil Code § 1799.91, is unenforceable against any cosigner to whom the statutory notice …
by David M. Reutter
On January 28, 2022, the Supreme Court of Kansas held that a state court has no authority to revoke and remand a state probationer to prison except by an action that is timely initiated with a warrant or notice to appear. Since the proceedings …
by David M. Reutter
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a jury’s judgment in a civil rights action alleging guards at Wisconsin’s Madison County Jail (MCJ) were deliberately indifferent to a detainee's medical care. The court found the jury was improperly instructed to determine if the defendants’ …
by David M. Reutter
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of state law negligence claims based upon a prisoner being forced to self-apply a medication that was not supposed to be dispensed to patients. The court, however, affirmed the dismissal of a deliberate indifference claim.
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