by Derek Gilna
In June 2012, following a dispute with officials at the Washington State Penitentiary (WSP), prisoner John Thomas Entler filed written complaints in which he said he would file lawsuits and seek criminal charges if his grievances were not addressed. He was then disciplined for those statements under ...
by Derek Gilna
California state prisoner Roy Butler, serving an indeterminate prison term for second-degree murder, sought habeas corpus relief on December 12, 2012, contesting the California Parole Board’s process of calculating the length of his sentence. Butler and the state agreed to a settlement “requiring the [Parole] Board to ...
by Derek Gilna
Sebastian Richardson, a former prisoner held in the Special Management Unit (SMU) at the federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, has won an important legal victory against the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). In a July 15, 2016 ruling, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court’s ...
by Derek Gilna
In 1997, Temple University professor Lori Pompa instituted a ground-breaking program at a Philadelphia county jail known as the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, which brings university students and prisoners together in a correctional setting to discuss criminal justice and other academic issues. From that modest start, the ...
by Derek Gilna
New York state prisoner David Sweat became famous – or rather infamous – when he and fellow prisoner Richard W. Matt escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York in 2015. The pair led authorities on a three-week search through the rural area, known for ...
by Derek Gilna
A federal class-action suit filed on April 17, 2018 in the Middle District of Georgia accuses private prison behemoth CoreCivic – formerly Corrections Corporation of America – of exploiting immigrant detainees who perform work in the company’s ICE detention facilities, specifically at the Stewart Detention Center in ...
by Derek Gilna
How do you calculate the cost of years of your life – lost forever – when you are behind bars for a crime you didn’t commit, while knowing that those who put you there perverted the criminal justice system to do so? For Frank O’Connell of Los ...
by Derek Gilna
A Canadian non-profit organization, Evolve Our Prison Farms (EOPF), has come out in opposition to the Canadian government’s plan, announced in early 2018, to reinstitute prison farms that will include the slaughter of livestock. A total of $4.3 million over five years was authorized to recommence dairy ...
by Derek Gilna
Edward George Carter and Marwin McHenry, both wrongfully convicted and imprisoned in separate cases, have obtained compensation awards from the Michigan Court of Claims. Carter was awarded $1,761,506.85, while McHenry received $175,753.42.
Carter was tried and convicted in 1975 for a sexual assault on a pregnant student ...
by Derek Gilna
Dothan, Alabama pastor and non-profit director Kenneth Glasgow, 52, has been charged with capital murder in a controversial case where another man with whom he was driving fatally shot a woman who allegedly stole the other man’s car. Glasgow has condemned the charge as excessive and moved ...
