The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit approved the appointment of a receiver to oversee operations of the Raymond Detention Center (RDC) in Hinds County, Mississippi. The district court’s action was a contempt sanction imposed for the County’s repeated failures to comply with a consent decree.
RDC has ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the dismissal of a prisoner’s civil rights action for the failure to exhaust administrative remedies. The Court found the prisoner was “reliably informed” by a prison grievance coordinator that the remedy was “not available to him.”
The appeal was filed ...
In a settlement reached on December 20, 2024, Colorado’s Sedgwick County agreed to pay $2.7 million to Peatinna Biggs, an intellectually disabled former detainee in the county jail who was raped by the Sheriff during transport. The County initially beat back claims for any liability in the U.S. District Court ...
On June 30, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a complaint filed by Abu Zubaydah, 52, a falsely accused Al-Qaeda conspirator captured after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, who is still being held without charges as an “enemy combatant” by the ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the denial of qualified immunity to a prison doctor who delayed the scheduling of a prisoner’s MRI due to the prisoner’s upcoming parole hearing and the possibility of a grant of parole.
Iowa prisoner Travis Dantzler sued Dr. Tonia Baldwin, ...
On December 31, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that a prisoner “need not file repeated grievances if the (prisoner) has identified one continuing harm or a single course of conduct [of] which later events are a part.” In other words, the Court adopted the ...
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 ...
