by Douglas Ankney
Horrendous conditions inside Los Angeles County Jails, described as “barbaric” in a recent law suit, continue to plague those facilities and at least 122 detainee deaths since January 2023 show these conditions are deadly. Those unfortunate enough to be confined in an LA County Jail …
by Douglas Ankney
With at least 42 people killed inside Mississippi’s prisons over the last decade, multiple families are wondering why the Mississippi Department of Corrections (DOC) cannot protect people in its custody or hold the killers accountable.
From 2015 through 2024, the homicide rate at Parchman …
by Douglas Ankney
The cover story of the June 2025 issue of PLN reported that “[d]espite years of litigation, injunctions, consent decrees, and contempt fines ranging into the hundreds of millions,” the State of Washington had “consistently failed to provide timely competency evaluations and restoration services to defendants …
by Douglas Ankney
On September 2, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that 28 U.S.C. section 2107(a) requires that a notice of appeal of an order denying qualified immunity must be filed within 30 days after entry of the order and to the …
by Douglas Ankney
On February 25, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) reversed Oklahoma prisoner Richard Eugene Glossip’s death sentence. This is the second time a death sentence imposed upon Glossip has been overturned. His case wreaks of state corruption, so much so that a …
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that a prisoner must have been convicted of the death-resulting enhancement element of 21 U.S.C. section 841(b)(1)(C) before that enhancement may be applied under 18 U.S.C. section 3632(d)(4)(D)(lviii) to make a prisoner ineligible for time …
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled on January 29, 2025 that Michigan’s tolling provision codified in Mich. Comp. Laws section 600.5856 is not inconsistent with the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA).
On March 2, 2018, prisoner Lamont Bernard …
by Douglas Ankney
Between 2022 and 2025, the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) held between 17,164 and 18,476 prisoners and detainees, according to data from the agency’s website. During that same period, just 120 of those prisoners were transgender, either male-to-female or female-to-male. But …
by Douglas Ankney
On February 13, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit declined to extend to summary judgment proceedings based on Bank v. Pitt, 928 F.2d 1108 (11th Cir. 1991), which requires district courts to sua sponte notify pro se litigants to amend …
by Douglas Ankney
On December 5, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed an order of the district court permitting Plaintiffs Tati Abu King and Toni Heath Johnson (collectively “Plaintiffs”) to proceed under the doctrine expounded in the U.S. Supreme …
