by Douglas Ankney
On March 29, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana denied in part a motion filed by private prison company The GEO Group, seeking to dismiss a class-action suit filed on behalf of prisoners in the Mental Health Unit (MHU) at ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has defined the term “serious physical injury” in the text of 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). Michael Gresham is a state prisoner serving a 75-year sentence in a Michigan prison. He filed a § 1983 action against several prison ...
by Dale Chappell and Douglas Ankney
As of late July 2019, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had released over 3,000 prisoners under the First Step Act, a landmark criminal justice reform measure signed in December 2018 by President Trump. [See: PLN, April 2019, p.1; Jan. 2019, p.34]. The ...
by Douglas Ankney
"Help us.” “We are dying in here.” “They are trying to kill us.”
Those were just some of the pleas that civil rights and mental health advocates heard from prisoners who shouted through the walls during a tour of Virginia’s Hampton Roads Regional Jail (HRRJ) in March ...
by Douglas Ankney
On August 22, 2019, the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska denied the “Motion to Strike Expert Declarations” (Motion) that was filed by the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (NDCS).
Prisoner Hannah Sabata and other prisoners (Plaintiffs) within the custody and control of the ...
by Dale Chappell
A woman who spent 96 days in the Choctaw County Jail in Mississippi without being granted a lawyer or bail hearing was awarded $250,000 by a federal jury March 26, 2017, after her lawsuit was reinstated on appeal.
The federal lawsuit brought by Jessica Jauch in the ...
by Douglas Ankney
In a continued pattern of granting clemency to conservative political allies, on May 15, 2019, President Trump pardoned former newspaper mogul Conrad M. Black, who served 42 months in federal prison after being convicted of fraud and obstruction of justice in 2007. The charges were related to ...
by Douglas Ankney
A federal district court in the Western District of Virginia held that a prisoner who alleged he was beaten after a jail guard informed other prisoners of his sex offender status had stated an Eighth Amendment claim.
John E. Lonewolf arrived at the Rockbridge Regional Jail (RRJ) ...
by Douglas Ankney
On February 27, 2019, the State of Hawaii and a prison medical contractor agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by Helen Coma, the mother of 32-year-old Jonathan Ibana.
Ibana, incarcerated at the Halawa Correctional Facility (HCF), killed himself on March 11, 2013 – ...
by Douglas Ankney
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed a district court’s order denying a blind prisoner’s motion to appoint counsel.
James V. Pennewell was blind in his left eye due to retinal detachment when he began serving a prison sentence on February 3, 2015 at ...
