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, ...
by David M. Reutter
A $200,000 settlement was reached to resolve a civil rights action alleging a guard at Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish Jail subjected a 15-year-old detainee to repeated sexual abuse.
The complaint stated that every day that guard Eddie Williams, 69, worked between June 2015 and January 2016, ...
by David M. Reutter
The superintendent of Pennsylvania’s George W. Hill Correctional Facility, which is run by GEO Group, resigned in November after a media investigation uncovered a buried whistleblower complaint alleging racist and abusive behavior.
John A. Reilly, Jr., was recruited in 2001 as deputy superintendent George ...
by David M. Reutter
Campaign contributions from private medical provider Wellpath to Virginia’s Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman may be legal under Virginia law but are raising ethical questions. Wellpath is already under federal investigation for a contract renewal in Norfolk County.
Wellpath was known as Correct Care Solutions until ...
by David M. Reutter
Pennsylvania’s Erie County agreed to pay $1.15 million to settle a civil rights action alleging the county jail had a policy that “required a non-medical person to make a medical decision about what to do with someone suffering from a medical emergency.”
The lawsuit was filed ...
by David M. Reutter
After decades of leading the charge during the tough-on-crime era, Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. is trying to fashion himself as a champion of prison reform. Since July 2019 his campaign website has included proposals to abolish the death ...
by David M. Reutter
After nearly six years of languishing in jail because he could not afford a quarter-million dollar bond, a jury in Jefferson County, Kentucky acquitted Eugene “Red” Mitchell.
The jury’s September 18, 2019 acquittal of Mitchell on charges that he raped, sodomized and murdered Sheila Devine showed ...
