by Douglas Ankney
On December 30, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated a district court’s judgment that had held that prisoner plaintiff Clint Edwards had: failed to exhaust his administrative remedies; failed to adequately allege a conditions of confinement claim; and failed …
by Douglas Ankney
On June 24, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed a district court’s denial of qualified immunity to two registered nurses, Diana Snow and Christina Watson, who were employed by the Lake County Detention Center (“Jail”) when prisoner Randy Wiertella …
by Douglas Ankney
In a class-action suit, the Kennebec Superior Court of Maine ordered commissioners of the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services (“MCPDS Defendants”) to create a plan to remedy the systemic failure to timely appoint counsel to indigent defendants. The Court also outlined its paradigm for …
by Douglas Ankney
On February 25, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) reversed Oklahoma prisoner Richard Eugene Glossip’s death sentence. This is the second time a death sentence imposed upon Glossip has been overturned. His case wreaks of state corruption, so much so that a …
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that a prisoner must have been convicted of the death-resulting enhancement element of 21 U.S.C. section 841(b)(1)(C) before that enhancement may be applied under 18 U.S.C. section 3632(d)(4)(D)(lviii) to make a prisoner ineligible for time …
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled on January 29, 2025 that Michigan’s tolling provision codified in Mich. Comp. Laws section 600.5856 is not inconsistent with the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA).
On March 2, 2018, prisoner Lamont Bernard …
by Douglas Ankney
Between 2022 and 2025, the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) held between 17,164 and 18,476 prisoners and detainees, according to data from the agency’s website. During that same period, just 120 of those prisoners were transgender, either male-to-female or female-to-male. But …
by Douglas Ankney
On February 13, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit declined to extend to summary judgment proceedings based on Bank v. Pitt, 928 F.2d 1108 (11th Cir. 1991), which requires district courts to sua sponte notify pro se litigants to amend …
by Douglas Ankney
On December 5, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed an order of the district court permitting Plaintiffs Tati Abu King and Toni Heath Johnson (collectively “Plaintiffs”) to proceed under the doctrine expounded in the U.S. Supreme …
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled on December 23, 2024 that a district court erred in dismissing, without a hearing, prisoner-plaintiff Henry Jones’s 42 U.S.C. section 1983 complaint (“Complaint”) for failure to exhaust administrative remedies where a factual dispute existed as …
