by David M. Reutter
Guards at North Carolina’s Wayne County Detention Center (WCDC) abused and beat to death a mentally ill veteran who was arrested for breaking the window out his neighbor’s truck in May 2017, a civil rights complaint alleged.
Graydon “Jerry” Parker, III, 54, served two years in ...
by David M. Reutter
A Georgia federal district court ordered the Fulton County Sheriff to give more out of cell time and to provide sanitary confinement conditions for women at the South Fulton Municipal Regional Jail.
The court’s order came in a lawsuit brought by the Georgia Advocacy Office, a ...
by David M. Reutter
A Florida federal district court denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the Florida Department of Corrections’ (FDOC) policies and practices related to isolation are unconstitutional.
As PLN reported, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed this suit on behalf of five prisoners, and it ...
by David M. Reutter
In an unpublished opinion, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of qualified immunity to guards in a civil rights action alleging they were deliberately indifferent to a pretrial detainees health issues stemming from methadone withdrawal.
The lawsuit was filed by Whitney Foster, who ...
by David M. Reutter
The April 15, 2018, riot at South Carolina’s Lee Correctional Institution (LCI) illustrates the consequences of prison understaffing. That riot was the worst in America’s prisons in 25 years. The toll was seven dead and 22 injured. The aftermath is at least 18 lawsuits.
LCI, like ...
by David M. Reutter
A California federal jury awarded $12,617,674 to a man who suffered brain damage after San Diego County sheriff’s deputies pulled him away from an examining paramedic and hauled him off to jail.
David Collins called 911 on November 18, 2016, while hallucinating in his home. Deputies ...
by David M. Reutter
An Illinois federal district court granted summary judgment to Cook County in a civil rights action alleging a jail policy that limits its pretrial detainees to possession of three books violates the First Amendment.
The case has a “somewhat convoluted procedural history,” having been to the ...
by David M. Reutter
Michigan’s new approach to dealing with mentally ill prisoners is not only more humane, it is proving to be more effective at reducing recidivism.
When Heidi Washington took over as director of the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) in 2015, she vowed to change the way ...
by David M. Reutter
Tobacco is a valuable commodity in jails and prisons because it is considered contraband. Maurice Dewayne Wakefield, II, went to great lengths with a group of prisoners to get another prisoner’s stash of tobacco. The price was a 9 to 18 year sentence.
When prisoner C.S. ...
by David M. Reutter
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held on September 18, 2019 that a guard cannot be held liable under the Constitution for failing to prevent an escape.
In an attempt to apparently commit suicide, Tyson Salters, a pretrial detainee at the Kane County jail in Illinois, ...
