by Douglas Ankney
On December 29, 2023, New York state prisoners Eugene Taylor, 32, and Charles Wright, 44, filed separate lawsuits alleging that guards with the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) beat and waterboarded them two months before.
According to Taylor’s complaint, he was incarcerated at Green ...
by Douglas Ankney
A November 2023 report by the New York Office of the Inspector General (OIG) detailed grave defects uncovered by an investigation into the Contraband Drug Testing Program of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS). That led to another round of expungements of disciplinary actions ...
by Douglas Ankney
On November 2, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc, does not require a group of Arkansas prisoners to show perfect adherence to allegedly burdened beliefs in order to demonstrate ...
by Douglas Ankney
In an important decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on December 8, 2023, that pretrial detainees no longer need show that a detention official “knew of and disregarded a substantial risk to the inmate’s health or safety” to state a claim of ...
by Douglas Ankney
After a federal court found its provision of healthcare and mental health care to all state prisoners was “plainly, grossly inadequate,” Arizona settled a suit over one prisoner’s suicide on November 11, 2023. In the agreement, the state promised to pay $40,000 to Julie Georgatos to settle ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held on November 15, 2023, that a lower court erred in assuming that a group of Virginia prisoners proceeded in forma pauperis (IFP) when they sued federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Daniel I. Werfel for COVID-19 stimulus ...
by Douglas Ankney
Of the many hurdles prisoners and jail detainees face, the statute of limitations for a civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is among the first. Now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has made it even harder to clear, with a decision on ...
by Douglas Ankney
As a teen in the South, I often heard it said: “Being poor ain’t no sin.” But apparently it has become illegal. According to a report from the Vera Institute of Justice, Kentucky’s courts charge myriad fees and fines to plug budgets riddled with holes by the ...
by Douglas Ankney
On December 22, 2023, the Supreme Court of Alaska reversed dismissal of a state prisoner’s claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) against officials with the state Department of Corrections (DOC) who admitted improperly holding him in segregation for 504 days, 335 of which—over 11 months—were ...
by Douglas Ankney
On January 23, 2024, the Washington Court of Appeals sent the case of a state prisoner back to the trial court that convicted him of second-degree domestic violence rape and assault, finding the counts must be dismissed or retried because officials at the jail where he was ...
