Lack of expert testimony halved a $500,000 award made by a federal jury to Pennsylvania prisoner Michael Sherman Allen on November 1, 2023, for injuries sustained in a brutal 2019 beating at the hands of Robert Hollowood and fellow guards at State Correctional Institution (SCI) in Fayette.
Allen, who is an African-American, was previously held at SCI-Graterford when he filed an earlier complaint against several guards in July 2015. Before that case went to trial, one of the named defendants—guard Edward Settle—died. SCI-Fayette guards, apparently aware of the case and blaming Allen for Settle’s death, called the prisoner a “snitch” and a “scum bag.”
It was against this background that Allen observed Hollowood and two other guards—Juan Macias and Paul Gaffey—enter his cell at SCI-Fayette on February 25, 2019. Allen at the time was on the telephone, so he terminated his call and approached his cell to see why the guards were inside, finding that Hollowood was destroying his CPAP machine.
Gaffey prevented Allen from entering the cell to attempt to save the device and ordered him to strip naked in front of the other prisoners on the cell block. Allen complied. Surveillance video then captured …
by Douglas Ankney
On June 27, 2023, the Office of U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz (OIG) released a report corroborating a New York City medical examiner’s conclusion that the death of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was a suicide but faulting the federal Bureau of Prisons …
by Douglas Ankney
In the nine months ending on June 30, 2023, there were 47,931 sentences for federal crime, driving more than 5,000 prisoners into custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons every month, according to data released by the U.S. Sentencing Commission on September 21, 2023.
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by Douglas Ankney
In June 2023, Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) reviewed data from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics on HIV and people in America’s prisons, finding that infection rates for the virus—which has no cure—remain stubbornly higher behind bars, running three times the overall rate for all …
by Douglas Ankney
Jeff Burkett resigned as Sheriff of Missouri’s Iron County on January 31, 2024, saying if he stayed to defend a civil suit filed to remove him from office, his testimony might undermine his defense to pending criminal charges.
As PLN reported, the now-former Sheriff …
by Douglas Ankney
In an 1829 letter, Pres. Andrew Jackson (D) told the Creek Nation of Indigenous Americans that he was speaking “straight, and not with a forked tongue” when he promised those who evacuated from Alabama would enjoy new lands in Mississippi “forever.” Almost two centuries later, …
by Douglas Ankney
When raw sewage flooded two cell blocks at New Mexico’s Torrance County Detention Facility (TCDF) on November 14, 2023, guards working for its private operator, CoreCivic, ordered some 40 affected migrant detainees being held for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to clean it up—and …
by Douglas Ankney
On February 24, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its final order requiring prison calling-service provider Global Tel*Link (GTL) “to change its security practices and offer free credit monitoring and identity protection” to some 650,000 customers whose personal information was stolen and made available …
by Douglas Ankney
On October 13, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s denial of qualified immunity (QI) to officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in two suits filed over a botched prisoner transfer during the COVID-19 …
by Douglas Ankney
To paraphrase Job 1:21, the Supreme Court of Virginia did not giveth but taketh away on October 12, 2023, with a ruling on prisoner sentence credits that were extended by a 2020 law only to have a budget amendment make hash of them two years …
