by David M. Reutter
With Florida continuing to face budget shortfalls due to the economic crisis, Governor Charlie Crist is looking for ways to slash government spending. However, his efforts are drawing fire from those who question cutting the budget of the Florida Parole Commission (FPC).
When Crist became governor, ...
by David M. Reutter
The disparity in compensation awards for prisoners exonerated by DNA evidence in Georgia demonstrates the need for evenhanded compensation laws.
Five wrongly convicted prisoners, Clarence Harrison, Robert Clark, Douglas Echols, Samuel Scott and Willie Otis “Pete” Williams, spent a combined 82 years in Georgia prisons for ...
by David M. Reutter
A federal investigation uncovered a fraudulent scheme at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in which horses were sold to private parties, bypassing required public auctions. Two indictments were handed down that resulted in guilty pleas.
On September 19, 2007, a federal grand jury returned an ...
by David M. Reutter
In February 2009, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of summary judgment to a Correctional Medical Services (CMS) nurse in a lawsuit that accused her of failing to properly treat a Michigan prisoner for heat sickness, which left him a quadriplegic.
On July ...
by David M. Reutter
A November 2009 report by Elizabeth Alexander, Director of the National Prison Project of the ACLU, explores the history and effects of over-incarceration in Michigan and how the state has managed to reduce its prison population by roughly 8% during an era of unprecedented national prison ...
by David M. Reutter
As the prison industrial complex has continued to grow, critics of privatization have adamantly warned that it would lead to financial incentives for for-profit companies to keep people ensnared in the criminal justice system. The privatized probation system in Georgia is the fulfillment of that warning. ...
by David M. Reutter
“Dropping out of high school [is] an apprenticeship for prison,” said Illinois State Senator Emil Jones at a 2006 Chicago conference on high school dropouts. An October 2009 report issued by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies demonstrates the truth of that statement and the ...
by David M. Reutter
A Pennsylvania U.S. District Court has granted absolute judicial immunity to two former state court judges in a consolidated class-action civil rights suit. That immunity, however, only applied to judicial acts, allowing the case to proceed on the judges’ corrupt actions that were administrative in nature. ...
by David M. Reutter
Two of the three nominees to be South Florida’s next U.S. Attorney have violated a basic tenet of court administration by acting to hide court records from the public.
In 2002, U.S. Attorney nominee Daryl Trawick, a Miami-Dade Court Judge, instructed the clerk’s office to alter ...
by David M. Reutter
After 35 years of proclaiming his innocence for the kidnapping and rape of a 9-year-old boy, James Bain, 54, was finally proven innocent and released from a Florida prison on December 17, 2009.
Of the 246 prisoners nationwide exonerated by DNA evidence, Bain served the most ...
