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 …
by Douglas Ankney
On December 24, 2025, the Nevada Court of Appeals reversed the state district court’s dismissal of pretrial detainee David North’s claim that CoreCivic, the private prison operator, violated his due process rights under the Nevada Constitution by failing to protect him from violence at the …
by Douglas Ankney
On September 16, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (“Court” or “Seventh Circuit”) revived former prisoner Carl Joseph McDaniel’s suit against the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) alleging violations of his rights under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act …
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a jury’s award of $265,000 to Pennsylvania prisoner Henry Unseld Washington who was sexually assaulted twice by guard T.S. Oswald.
In 2013, Oswald and another guard identified as a “sergeant” escorted the handcuffed Washington to the visiting room. …
On February 3, 2025, a former Massachusetts prisoner dismissed claims arising from a stillbirth she suffered while incarcerated at Massachusetts Regional Women’s Correctional Center (MRWCC). In return, Lidia Lech agreed to dismiss all claims over the tragedy that she had lodged against Hampden County Sheriff Nick Cocchi, whose office operated the lockup, as well as Dr. Dorothy Von Goeler and other staffers with Baystate Health, which was contractually obligated to provide healthcare to MRWCC prisoners.
Lech was pregnant when she was imprisoned in October 2013. Because a uterine rupture during a previous pregnancy had resulted in a miscarriage, her pregnancy was considered high risk, and she was scheduled to deliver her baby by caesarian section in mid-January 2014. But in mid-December 2013, she began to complain that her baby was “withering away inside of her,” according to the complaint she later filed. In response, staff called her “overbearing,” she said.
On January 2, 2014, Lech complained of vaginal bleeding to guard Natalie Cruz. When she then saw a nurse, Lech confided that she believed she was going into labor. Lech was then transported to a Baystate hospital, where staffers examined her and found that her baby …
On July 23, 2024, the saga of the kiss heard ‘round the New Jersey judiciary came to an end when the state Supreme Court held that the failure of former prison guard Brian Ambroise to report his kiss with a prisoner—identified as “J.O.”—was sufficient to support his termination from employment with the state Department of Corrections (DOC).
In a videotaped interview on October 7, 2016, J.O. informed staffers with the Special Investigation Division (SID) at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility (EMCF) that she and Ambroise had a sexual relationship. J.O. stated that Ambroise kissed her and performed oral sex on her while the two of them were inside a storage closet. J.O. provided investigators with Q-tips that she had purportedly used to swab her mouth and vaginal area after the alleged incident. J.O. also informed the SID that Ambroise brought her contraband and passed notes between her and another prisoner.
Lt. Kristen Larsen and Det. Sgt. Aaron Lacey of the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office, along with SID Senior Investigator Michael Kubik and Principal Investigator Jerome Scott, then conducted a videotaped interview of Ambroise. Prior to the interview, Ambroise waived his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 …
On June 26, 2024, New York City’s constructive denial of records from its Department of Correction (DOC) was vacated by a state court. Calling that a violation of the state Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), the Supreme Court of New York for New York County ordered the DOC to produce the requested materials. Because petitioner was an attorney, it also held that the DOC was liable for attorney’s fees.
On July 12, 2023, petitioner Cyrus Joubin, from his eponymous law office, requested DOC’s rules, procedures and policies in effect on October 10, 2017, regarding guards’ responsibilities “to protect inmates from assaults by other inmates” and “to supervise and monitor DOC housing units to prevent violence by inmates against other inmates.” The request further sought policies for conducting investigations into such assaults and violence, as well as investigations into trip-and-fall accidents. It was further refined to include both the Brooklyn Detention Center (BDC) and the Rikers Island jail complex. Identities of guards and other employees on duty that day and their duty rosters were also requested.
When the DOC Records Access Officer (RAO) denied the requests, Joubin then turned to the Records Access Appeals Office (RAAO). But he …
