by Douglas Ankney
In a maddening decision issued on July 16, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit managed to dismiss the excessive-force claim of a Colorado prisoner shot by a guard despite being shackled. Conveniently avoiding the merits of Brian Estrada’s suit, the Court decided ...
by Douglas Ankney
On September 27, 2024, the state of New York agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged that the state had violated the Eighth Amendment rights of state prisoner Wonder Williams by keeping him isolated in administrative segregation (Ad Seg) for nearly nine years.
The ...
by Douglas Ankney
As PLN reported 25 years ago, the New York City Department of Correction (DOC) was accused in a suit filed by attorneys with the Legal Aid Society of denying educational opportunities to young people incarcerated at the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex. [See: PLN, May 2000, ...
by Douglas Ankney
On June 18, 2024, the United States Court for the Northern District of California approved a series of settlements totaling $1 million that resolved a civil rights suit brought by the survivors of Carlos Chavez, whose suicide at the Monterey County Jail (MCJ) they blamed on guard ...
by Douglas Ankney
On June 17, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment to Defendant Kentucky Department of Corrections (DOC) officials who forced a prisoner to wear paper undershorts and then shrugged when the prison supply that was his size ...
by Douglas Ankney
On July 8, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment to Defendant officials at Virginia’s Hampton Roads Regional Jail (HRRJ) in a detainee’s suit alleging that they manhandled him while he was restrained in handcuffs.
Johnnie R. ...
by Douglas Ankney
On July 2, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated the grant of summary judgment to one of several North Carolina Department of Corrections (DOC) officials accused by a prisoner of failing to protect him from violence from other prisoners.
In 2004, ...
by Douglas Ankney
“I was young. I couldn’t pay for my ankle monitor. I went to jail because I couldn’t pay for my ankle monitor. And then they let me back out again on my ankle monitor that I couldn’t pay for.”—Dante Bristow, 23, who was arrested in Kansas at ...
by Douglas Ankney
On June 3, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit declined to join most sister circuits, which admit evidentiary challenges to class certification of a lawsuit. The Court called admissibility a “red herring” at such an early stage—before proceeding to find other reasons ...
by Douglas Ankney
In 2016, University of Michigan Professor Heather Ann Thompson published Blood in the Water, a book about the 1971 uprising at New York’s Attica State Prison that claimed the lives of 33 prisoners and 10 guards. The book received numerous awards, including the 2016 Bancroft Prize and ...
