by David M. Reutter
With the heat of summer’s arrival, Florida prisoners endure living in outdated infrastructure. The Florida Department of Corrections (FDC), in a July 14, 2020 email to prisoners, said it “is making efforts to ease the negative impact of extreme heat in the coming months.” …
by David M. Reutter
In late April 2020, prisoners at Arkansas’ Cummins Unit knew that the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, was spreading among not only the prison’s inmates but also its staff. But a prisoner identified as Marco was shocked to learn that the state Department of …
by David M. Reutter
A $550,000 settlement was reached in a civil rights lawsuit alleging 19-year-old Jimmy Lucero laid in a catatonic state at Augusta State Medical Prison (ASMP) as he starved to death with little to no medical care in 2015.
Lucero entered the Georgia Department …
by David M. Reutter
On April 9, 2020, Preston Bennett,
a disabled prisoner at the Cook County Jail (CCJ) in Chicago, won class-action certification to represent all of the jail’s disabled prisoners housed in its Division 10 as he proceeds with a lawsuit alleging violations of federal …
by David M. Reutter
An unnamed Armor Correctional Health Services doctor was blamed for spreading COVID-19 at the Pre-Trial Detention Center in Jacksonville, Florida. Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said the doctor “had previously shown symptoms of the virus but failed to notify the jail personnel,” according to The …
by David M. Reutter
On March 10, 2020, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a grant of summary judgment in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that sought video from the Bureau of Prisons. It, however, affirmed as to a request concerning records related …
by David M. Reutter
New York’s Suffolk County Legislature agreed on September 26, 2019 to pay $2.8 million to settle a lawsuit concerning the events surrounding the suicide six years earlier of pretrial detainee Jack Franqui.
The morning of January 23, 2013, started innocently for Franqui. He …
by David M. Reutter
On June 11, 2020, a federal court in North Carolina found that 11 prisoners at the Federal Correction Complex (FCC) in Butner had failed to prove officials with the Bureau of Prisons were deliberately indifferent to preventing the introduction and spread of COVID-19.
…
by David M. Reutter
A United Nations human rights expert has denounced the use of prolonged solitary confinement, which could inflict psychological torture on prisoners. His critique, given at a press conference on February 28, 2020, was aimed at conditions in Connecticut but has implications for the entirety …
by David M. Reutter
On March 4, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held an Indiana federal district court abused its discretion in denying a prisoner’s motion for appointment of counsel in a civil rights lawsuit.
That ruling came in an appeal brought …
