by David M. Reutter
Just because prisoners get sick with COVID-19 in a jail too crowded to practice safe social distancing does not make jail officials liable because so long as they say they are doing “their best,” they can’t be guilty of “deliberate indifference” to the problem.
That was ...
by David M. Reutter
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld on June 8, 2020, that a pretrial detainee’s First Amendment claim that officials violated his right to free speech by opening incoming and outgoing legal mail outside his presence. It affirmed judgment on claims alleging violation of the Fourth ...
by David M. Reutter
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s order denying a prisoner’s motion for recruitment of counsel.
This was the second appeal brought by Wisconsin prisoner Randy McCaa. His civil rights action alleged that the defendants were deliberately indifferent to his threats to commit ...
by David M. Reutter
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a report that found the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) violates prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights by frequently using excessive force. The report found overcrowding and understaffing are major contributors to the improper use of force.
The DOJ’s July 23, ...
by David M. Reutter
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals held on April 27, 2020 that a district court erred when ruling against a Pennsylvania prisoner’s civil rights complaint and allowed the case to proceed
Prisoner Casey Dooley, pro se, filed a civil rights action in state court that ...
by David M. Reutter
A New Jersey prison guard was acquitted on charges of official misconduct and conspiracy to commit sexual assault. It is the second acquittal for guard Brian Y. Ambroise, who worked at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, New Jersey’s only women’s prison.
The March 13, 2020, verdict by ...
by David M. Reutter
Renegotiation of its jail telephone contract netted Pennsylvania’s Lehigh County an unbudgeted $225,000 windfall. Mark Pinsley, the county comptroller, urged county officials to put that “revenue back into efforts to aid those held in the county jail.”
Pinsley’s March 5, 2020, letter noted that research shows ...
by David M. Reutter
On May 20, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, issued a precedent-setting ruling that clarified when a “misrepresentation” to a prisoner renders a grievance process “unavailable” as a matter of law under the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). ...
by David M. Reutter
Florida’s legal battle to defend a 2019 law that requires felons to pay all “legal financial obligations” (LFOs) to be eligible to vote has cost taxpayers over $1.7 million, according to state records as of August 2020. [See PLN, July 2020, p.54.]
In November 2018, ...
by David M. Reutter
Chicago’s Cook County Jail expanded its electronic monitoring program (EM) and moved detainees to home confinement in response to COVID-19. As officials ran out of ankle monitors, at least 10 detainees who were ordered released on EM were held in jail when it was one of ...
