by David M. Reutter
With the 2016 passage if its Wrongful Imprisonment Act, Michigan became one of 33 states with legislation creating a fund to compensate wrongfully convicted people, paying them $50,000 per year of their incarceration. But by early 2020 the fund didn’t even have enough money to pay ...
by David M. Reutter
When former Florida Gov. Rick Scott took office in 2011, he pushed to privatize health care for Florida prisoners. He promised the move would save taxpayers millions of dollars and it did, at least until 2014. An audit ordered by the state legislature found that since ...
by David M. Reutter
A $1 million settlement was reached in May 2019 in a lawsuit alleging the Atlanta City Detention Center (ACDC) left a pretrial detainee in an unlit confinement cell to die from untreated diabetes.
When Wickie Yvonne Bryant, 55, was booked into ACDC on September 14, 2015, ...
by David M. Reutter
A new law that reduces the minimum age to be a Florida prison guard has not helped resolve “critically low” staffing levels. Effective July 1, 2019, the minimum age to be a guard was reduced from 19 to 18.
Florida has struggled for over a decade ...
by David M. Reutter
The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) sued a vendor and its owner for scamming over 80 prisons of $530,000 by selling diluted spices and food products.
The suit, filed November 1, 2019, was brought under the False Claims Act (FCA), also known as “Lincoln’s Law,” for violations ...
by David M. Reutter
The Michigan Department of Corrections and its medical vendor, Corizon Health, agreed in October 2019 to pay $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit involving the death of a mentally ill prisoner who died of dehydration after guards turned off the water in her confinement cell.
Darlene ...
by David M. Reutter
Pennsylvania's Lackawanna County paid $1.1 million to settle yet another lawsuit alleging several Lackawanna County Prison (LCP) guards sexually assaulted female prisoners. That brings the total for lawsuits the county has agreed to settle over the last three years to $2.4 million, most of which was ...
by David M. Reutter
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in an unpublished opinion, reversed the dismissal of a Georgia prisoner’s First and Eighth Amendment damage claims that alleged he was denied a vegan diet that conformed to his Muslim religious beliefs.
While held at Valdosta State Prison (VSP) in ...
by David M. Reutter
The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) agreed to a $1.5 million settlement in a lawsuit alleging a 14-year-old was the target of several beatings and attacks and was raped in a shower by a 17-year-old detainee.
The lawsuit identifies the victim as “N.T.” and relates ...
by David M. Reutter
A $252,000 settlement was reached in October 2019 in a lawsuit brought by the estate of a pretrial detainee who hanged himself at Pennsylvania’s Northampton County Prison (NCP).
Kyle A. Flyte, 21, was booked into NCP on March 5, 2017 and was placed on “Level II ...
