by Douglas Ankney
On September 27, 2023, the Kansas Department of Corrections (DOC) appeared to back down from a fight over providing state prisoners materials from a Wiccan shop—though it maintained a ban on correspondence from the shop owner and an associated coven.
For at least 20 …
by Douglas Ankney
On April 3, 2023, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts called a medical parole denial by the state Commissioner of Correction arbitrary and capricious because it was made without a standardized risk assessment for prisoner applicant Martin McCauley, as required by Title 501 Code Mass. …
by Douglas Ankney
On September 19, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed dismissal of prisoner Tremayne Durham’s suit blaming employees of the New Jersey Department of Corrections (DOC) for injuries he suffered in a shower slip-and-fall, after they denied him access to his …
Douglas Ankney
On September 15, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut granted a transexual prisoner’s motion for summary judgment in a suit accusing the state Department of Correction (DOC) of violating her Eighth Amendment rights by failing to treat her gender dysphoria (GD).
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by Douglas Ankney
On September 7, 2023, five former detainees at Arkansas’ Washington County Detention Center (WCDC) informed the federal court for the Western District of Arkansas that they had accepted payment of $2,000 each to settle claims alleging that a jail doctor without their knowledge or consent …
by Douglas Ankney
On August 18, 2023, an agreement was reached by Defendant officials with the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) paying $10,936,250 to settle claims brought in a class-action lawsuit by prisoners and detainees who suffered for a week without electricity or heat at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention …
by Douglas Ankney and Casey J. Bastian
A spate of jail deaths in California’s San Bernardino County dating back to 2017 has led to at least four legal settlements totaling $3,232,500. Two additional settlements netted another $35,000 for detainees allegedly beaten by guards. Meanwhile one of the most …
by Douglas Ankney
On September 14, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dealt a death blow to claims filed by the estate of a Texas jail detainee against the county that held him when he died. But all was not lost for the Estate …
Douglas Ankney
According to an analysis from California’s Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD), reforms to the state’s felony-murder statutes had a dramatic effect by August 3, 2023. By then the agency had found sentence reductions granted to 602 state prisoners, since state lawmakers passed SB 1437 …
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit offered an Illinois state prisoner a hard lesson on July 27, 2023, affirming dismissal of his medical neglect claim against prison contractor Wexford Health Sources, Inc., for lack of evidence that expert testimony could have provided.
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