by Derek Gilna
A federal lawsuit was filed in November 2017 against every sheriff in the state of Oklahoma, along with judges, court officials and the Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association, challenging a scheme that turned unpaid court fees and fines into a collection “extortion” racket. Most of the people targeted by ...
by Derek Gilna
According to criminal justice expert and University of Chicago professor William Baude, “The doctrine of qualified immunity prevents government agents from being held personally liable for constitutional violations unless the violation was of ‘clearly established law.’”
Unfortunately, this doctrine has resulted in a lack of accountability for ...
by Derek Gilna
In March 2017, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania settled two federal lawsuits filed by former guards who alleged violations of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). In the first case, the county agreed to pay $90,000 to settle a suit brought by six guards – Allen Joyce, Matthew Besecker, ...
by Derek Gilna
A 2017 New York law, CPL 160.59, gives certain nonviolent offenders an opportunity to have their state convictions sealed, according to attorneys Ed Kratt and Frank Rothman. One of their clients, Joel Figueroa, a former drug dealer convicted in 2001 who graduated from college and now works ...
by Derek Gilna
Debra Skipper, a 61-year-old Ohio woman, was sentenced on October 31, 2017 in federal district court in Clarksburg, West Virginia to a split sentence of six months in jail and six months of home detention on charges related to wire fraud. Her co-defendant and son, Tyree Skipper, ...
by Derek Gilna
The Santa Fe County Correctional Facility in New Mexico, already cited by the U.S. Department of Justice for shoddy medical care and poor management, has been sued by the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), publisher of Prison Legal News, for rejecting books sent to detainees at the ...
by Derek Gilna
The parties to a May 2015 class-action settlement between prisoners at the Monterey County jail in California, county officials and the jail’s medical provider – which was supposed to address issues of poor medical and mental healthcare, inadequate staffing, accommodations for disabled prisoners and serious safety problems ...
by Derek Gilna
In a November 2017 report, the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) found that despite the avowed purpose of the federal sentencing guidelines to promote sentencing uniformity across geographic and socio-economic lines, black defendants continue to receive longer sentences for similar offenses than whites. The report controlled for factors ...
by Derek Gilna
In August 2017, prisoners at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison in Kenya, along with other prisoners in the African nation, were allowed to vote in presidential elections for the first time. Offenders at the Kamiti facility patiently waited their turn to vote via a biometric system that ...
by Derek Gilna
Within 30 days after the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act (S.1524) was introduced by U.S. Senator Kamala Harris and three of her colleagues – a bill that seeks to compel the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to provide free feminine hygiene products to female prisoners – the ...
