by Douglas Ankney
In January 2023, rappers Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and Mario “Yo Gotti” Mims agreed to dismiss the lawsuit they had brought on behalf of 227 prisoners challenging conditions at Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. The stipulation provided for dismissal of all claims “without prejudice” – meaning they could ...
by Douglas Ankney
On January 26, 2023, Texas death-row prisoners Mark Robertson, George Curry, Tony Egbuna Ford and Rickey Cummings filed suit in federal court for the Southern District of Texas on behalf of themselves and a putative class of similarly situated prisoners against officials with the state Department of ...
by Douglas Ankney
Owing in part to the diligent efforts of Michigan prisoner Mark White and a suit he filed in March 2023, it appears that employees of the state Department of Corrections (DOC) consider themselves under no obligation to abide by terms of a settlement agreement limiting prisoners’ exposure ...
by Douglas Ankney
On January 31, 2023, the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report counting 4,895 sexual assaults on U.S. prisoners and detainees in just three years. From 2016 through 2018, the report said, there were 2,666 incidents of substantiated prisoner-on-prisoner sexual victimization and 2,229 incidents of substantiated ...
by Douglas Ankney
On May 22, 2023, a $30,000 settlement was reached between officials with a Virginia jail and a Muslim prisoner who objected to its broadcasts of Christian religious programming, which he claimed violated the First Amendment prohibition against any government action “respecting establishment of religion.”
The agreement between Middle River Regional Jail (MRRJ) Authority and the prisoner, David Nighthorse Firewalker-Fields, came on the heels of a decision in his favor by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on January 17, 2023. Declining to be “a court of ‘first view’ and not ‘a court of review,’” the Court revived and remanded to the district court the question of whether the programming violated the Establishment Clause.
However, the Court said that a companion challenge failed under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, since the comparative lack of Muslim programming at the jail where Firewalker-Fields awaited transfer to the state Department of Corrections reflected restrictions “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests,” as laid out in Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987).
During nearly three months at MRRJ in 2017, Firewalker-Fields was unable to engage in Jumu’ah prayer services. One reason was his placement in maximum ...
by Douglas Ankney
In 2022, at least 28 detainees died while awaiting trial in the custody of the Harris County Jail (HCJ) – the highest number of deaths at the Texas facility in nearly two decades. Already 11 more have died in HCJ custody from January 1 to July 13, ...
by Douglas Ankney
On November 7, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that a district court erred in finding that Virginia prisoner David A. Richardson failed to present evidence that a policy of the state Department of Corrections (DOC) substantially burdened the exercise of ...
by Douglas Ankney
On March 16, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that the grievance procedure in Chicago’s Cook County Jail is an “incomprehensible trap,” making it effectively unavailable to a detainee and so excusing his failure to exhaust administrative remedies as required by the ...
by Douglas Ankney
A review of court records by PLN has found repeated sanctions for discovery violations against private prison healthcare provider Wellpath in suits across the country blaming the firm’s dismal care for prisoner deaths – including four since 2020.
Washington – Benton County Jail
First, the firm was ...
by Douglas Ankney
In a letter sent to 35 deputies withtheLos Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) on May 12, 2023, county Inspector General Max Huntsman demanded they report for questioning about their involvement in deputy “gangs,” including showing their gang tattoos and giving up the names of other gang members. ...
