On January 30, 2025, the Supreme Court of Oregon held that prisoners seeking to state a claim for economic damages in the form of future lost income need not plead an “enforceable right” to future employment and that the lack of a legal right to employment is not an automatic preclusion to such a claim.

Prisoner Arnold R. Huskey sued the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) and others for breach of contract and civil rights violations. Among other things, Huskey sought damages based on lost future wages and employment opportunities. Years prior, Huskey sued DOC and obtained a settlement agreement that purportedly involved DOC orally agreeing not to retaliate against Huskey.

The settlement was the contract underlying the breach of contract action. The breach was based on DOC allegedly violating its oral promise by creating, without Huskey’s permission, training videos that included footage of him and portrayed him in a negative manner. As a result, Huskey suffered $11,640 in economic damages due to DOC officials denying him job assignments, training, and other income-generating opportunities.

The trial court accepted the defendant’s argument to dismiss the action, finding that economic damages could not be pleaded by Huskey because Article I, section 41(3) ...

On August 8, 2024, the federal court for the Northern District of Illinois entered judgment for the estate of a former state prisoner after a jury awarded $22.5 million in damages for 22 years he spent wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. 

The verdict arrived too late for the prisoner, William Amor, who died in January 2024 before the case went to trial. During those proceedings, the Court heard that Amor was convicted of events that occurred on September 10, 1995, at his home in Naperville. At the time he was 39 and living in a condominium with his 18-year-old wife, Tina, and her disabled mother, Marianne Miceli, who owned the condo. That evening, Amor and Tina went to a drive-in movie. Less than 20 minutes after they left, Miceli called 911 to report a fire and said that she had no means of escape. She subsequently died from smoke inhalation.

The resulting investigation quickly pointed towards money as a motive for arson, after close family friend Marilyn Glisson told detectives that she overheard Amor and Tina talking about a life insurance policy that needed to remain in place. She further stated that Amor was manipulative, used others ...

On September 23, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment to a Rhode Island Department of Corrections (DOC) guard who pepper-sprayed a restrained prisoner and then delayed decontamination for nearly a half-hour. The Court’s ruling revived both federal and state-law claims based on the alleged excessive use of force against the prisoner, Joseph Segrain.

His federal civil rights complaint recalled events that ocurred on June 28, 2018, at Rhode Island’s Adult Correctional Instituition (ACI). Segrain, who was housed in ACI’s Disciplinary Confinement Unit, was escorted to an area know as the “flats” for shower and recreation time. There a guard issued Segrain shower supplies that included a brush, mirror, and razor.

About five minutes after Segrain arrived at the flats, guard Ronald Meleo informed him that he would have only 15 minutes out-of-cell time. A debate ensued as to whether Segrain was entitled to more time and whether he could file a grievance. Based on Segrain’s alleged failure to leave the flats, Meleo called for assistance.

Five other guards, including Walter Duffy and James Glendinning, responded to the call. At Duffy’s direction, Glendinning handcuffed Segrain, who complied without incident. When handcuffed, ...

On September 3, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed denial of qualified immunity (QI) for a pair of Maine jailers whom a prisoner accused of violating her civil rights by helping themselves to a good look at her naked body during a stay at a local hospital to deliver a baby.

Jaden Brown was pregnant when she began serving a 15-month sentence at the Cumberland County Jail (CCJ) in July 2018. On February 10, 2019, Brown went into labor and was transported at around 11 a.m. to the Maine Medical Center (MMC). There she gave birth to a baby girl at around 1 a.m. the next morning.

CCJ policy provided that jail guards are not allowed in “the delivery room when (a prisoner) is giving birth.” That policy was consistent with Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 30-A, § 1582(4), which provides that “[w]hen a prisoner … is admitted to a medical facility … for labor or childbirth, a corrections officer may not be present in the room during labor or childbirth unless specifically requested by medical personnel.” 

No such request was made while Brown was at MMC. But Brown had invited another guard who was ...

On January 30, 2025, a jury in South Carolina’s Richland County Court of Common Pleas, Fifth Judicial Circuit, awarded $250,000 to a state prisoner who accused the state Department of Corrections (DOC) of gross negligence in failing to rein in a guard who assaulted him. 

Prisoner Daniel Tyler Huneycutt’s allegations involved an incident that occurred at the Tyger River Correctional Institute (TRCI) on May 14, 2019. Huneycutt, who was transferred to TRCI the week before, went to the kiosk to send a job assignment request to his case manager. But there was a formal count then underway. Cpl. Vasily Chernyak, Jr. came into the dorm and ordered him return to his cell, informing Huneycutt that he must remain there during count.

Huneycutt apologized, stating that he was unaware of the requirement. But as he was returning to his cell, “Chernyak blocked his way,” the prisoner’s complaint recalled. The guard then “put his chemical munition canister one to two inches from [Huneycutt’s] face,” spraying its contents “directly [into Huneycutt’s] left eye.” Another guard, Sgt. McMorris, ordered Chernyak to stop, but the guard sprayed Huneycutt at least two additional times.

While Huneycutt was obtaining medical treatment, Chernyak taunted him about how “good” ...

On February 24, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed judgment that the “postcard-only” policy for periodicals and books at Arkansas’ Baxter County Jail and Detention Center constituted a de facto blanket ban on publications in violation of the First Amendment rights of the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News. The Court further affirmed an award of $259,350 in attorney fees and costs to HRDC.

HRDC sued Baxter County in 2017 to enjoin the jail’s policy prohibiting all detainee mail except for legal mail and postcards. After a three-day trial in April 2019, the federal court for the Western District of Arkansas found the policy was reasonably related to legitimate penological interests and did not violate HRDC’s First Amendment rights. HRDC appealed.

The Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded the case, citing the second of four factors that must be considered when balancing prison and jail censorship with the First Amendment rights of those incarcerated and those who would communicate with them. As outlined in Turner v. Safely, 482 U.S. 78 (1987), courts must consider whether a restriction has a valid, rational connection to a legitimate penological purpose, whether ...

On January 2, 2025, a settlement was signed by the Plaintiff in a lawsuit over the suicide of a juvenile pretrial detainee held at the lockup in North Carolina’s Mecklenburg County. Under the terms of the agreement, the County agreed to pay $550,000 to the administrator of the Estate of the dead teen, “D.W.” In addition to the cash payout, Sheriff Garry L. McFadden promised to make substantive policy changes to protect detainees.

Though he was just 17, D.W. had endured a traumatic life before arriving at the County Detention Center (CDC). By age three, he had been sexually abused. By age six, he had been assaulted with a gun. When he was 11, D.W. was the victim of more abuse and assault. He also suffered a serious head injury as a child, and his father was imprisoned by the time D.W. was arrested. As a result of these events, D.W. had noted anger issues; he was a restless, impulsive risk-taker, and a substance abuser, too. 

On November 5, 2020, D.W. was booked into the Rockingham CDC and transferred to the Alexander Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Alexander County. There, employees of the state Department Public Safety (DPS) placed ...

On January 14, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a former Illinois prisoner’s deliberate indifference claim against a healthcare provider contracted by the state Department of Corrections (DOC) could proceed to trial, though dismissal of an identical claim against four other staffers was upheld. The lower court had determined that prisoner Clarence Lewis impermissibly split his claims against Wexford Health Sources’ Dr. Dina Paul between his suit and another filed with other plaintiffs also challenging treatment for their Hepatitis-C. But the appellate Court said that Dr. Paul waited too long to raise the objection, thereby waiving the defense. The Court further held that failure to recruit counsel for Lewis’ claims against the other Wexford staffers was not shown to be error.

Lewis sued the five providers, alleging that they were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs while he was imprisoned at Hill Correctional Center from 2013 to 2018. Lewis accused Dr. Kul B. Sood, Nurse Lara Vollmer and Dr. Catalino Bautista of misdiagnosing him and mistreating him for diabetes and COPD when what he really suffered was a bowel disorder. Lewis further alleged that Bautista delayed the colonoscopy procedure which discovered it and ...

On January 29, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that Michigan’s “tolling provision” does not affect the administrative remedy exhaustion requirement in the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e. Instead, the provision only pauses Michigan’s statute of limitations.

Michigan prisoner Lamont Heard, who is serving a life sentence, alleged in a civil rights lawsuit that prison officials retaliated against his litigation activities by transferring him to different housing in “the Burns unit.” The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan dismissed the complaint for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and Heard appealed.

The Sixth Circuit found that the case hinged on the procedural timeline. Heard stated that he was transferred to the Burns unit on January 10, 2017, and that he filed a grievance the next day. Months later, the grievance was returned with instructions to file it with the local grievance coordinator, which Heard did. He never received a response.

Heard had filed a separate civil rights complaint on December 4, 2017, concerning a different prison transfer. On March 2, 2018, Heard moved to amend that complaint to add the Burns unit claim. The district court then dismissed the claim ...

On February 4, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted three “male-to-female transgender women” imprisoned by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) a temporary restraining order (TRO). The order prevented BOP from transferring the prisoners to a men’s prison and from discontinuing administration of their prescribed hormone therapy medication. The district court subsequently allowed nine other trans BOP prisoners to join the suit, extending the TRO to protect them until August 2025.

On January 20, 2025, Pres. Donald Trump (R) signed an Executive Order that required government officials to “ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers.” The order further required the BOP to revise its policies to “ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” As PLN reported, a trans BOP prisoner identified as “Maria Moe” then succeeded in winning a TRO from the federal court for the District of Massachusetts on January 26, 2025, preventing her transfer to a men’s lockup. [See: PLN, Mar. 2025, p.43.]

The three prisoners who filed their complaint in the D.C. ...