On December 23, 2024, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, affirmed the grant of qualified immunity (QI) to defendant officials with the Georgia Department of Corrections (DOC) in the claim of a now-dead Georgia prisoner who suffered epileptic seizures and injury after his medication was withheld at Walker State Prison.

The panel’s decision followed a rehearing of Plaintiff’s earlier appeal in the case by the full Eleventh Circuit sitting en banc on July 10, 2024. Though the ruling marked the beginning of the end for the Estate of the prisoner, David Henegar, the Court’s decision is nonetheless important for other prisoners in the Eleventh Circuit in that it announced a new framework for demonstrating the subjective component of a deliberate indifference claim.

Henegar, then 39, was diagnosed with epilepsy and then denied prescribed anti-seizure medication over four consecutive days in August 2016, leaving him to suffer two seizures and permanent brain damage. He filed suit against DOC officials, but the federal court for the Northern District of Georgia granted Defendants QI and dismissed his claim, a decision affirmed by a panel of the Eleventh Circuit in 2023—only to be withdrawn later …

Sheriff Ryan Sperling of Washington’s Mason County signed an agreement on September 19, 2024, settling allegations by the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) that the county jail was not complying with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. ch. 126 § 12101 et seq., in providing treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) to those incarcerated there.

Title II of the ADA provides that “no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity.” However, the term “individual with a disability” specifically excludes anyone “currently engaging in the illegal use of drugs, when the covered entity acts on the basis of such use.” Except that “a public entity shall not deny health services, or services provided in connection with drug rehabilitation, to an individual on the basis of that individual’s current illegal use of drugs, if the individual is otherwise entitled to such services.” 

The Settlement Agreement specified that “[m]ethadone, naltrexone, and buprenorphine are medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration …

Under a limited writ of mandamus issued by the Supreme Court of Ohio on October 17, 2024, the Columbiana County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) must obtain records from the private contractor operating the county jail and disclose them pursuant to a public records request. Sheriff Brian McLaughlin had argued that the records were in the custody of Correctional Solutions Group (CSG), which as a private firm is not subject to such a request. But the high Court called foul on that feint and ordered him to get the records and disclose them to the requester, now-state prisoner Terry Brown, or else certify within 21 days that no responsive records exist.

In August 2023, Brown submitted two public records requests to the CCSO, in care of Sheriff McLaughlin. His first request listed 10 items seeking “[e]mployees’ names and positions held while working at the Columbiana County Jail during the time period of January 1, 2017, through July 1, 2018.” Brown’s second request listed another 15 items pertaining to current “[p]olicy information on Inmate Intake/Booking and Retention of records,” to include the “booking of inmates showing signs of intoxication, impairment, injury, or psychological problems.” In both requests, Brown also sought “related …

In a ruling on November 11, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected the amended compassionate release policy published by the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) and declared that a Pennsylvania prisoner was not eligible for early release based on Congress’s nonretroactive statutory amendments that decrease penalties for crimes.

In 2003, then 22-year-old Daniel Rutherford committed two armed robberies in Philadelphia, leading to his conviction for numerous felonies, including two counts of using a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1). At the time of his sentencing, the penalty for the first violation of § 924(c) was a mandatory term of seven years in prison, and each subsequent violation carried an enhanced mandatory term of 25 years to run consecutively. As a result, Rutherford received a 32-year sentence for the two §924(c) violations alone. The district court imposed a term of 125 months on the remaining convictions to run consecutively, bumping his total sentence to roughly 42.5 years.

But in 2018, Congress amended § 924(c) when it passed the First Step Act (FSA), Public L. No. 115-391, 132 Stat. 5194 (2018). Prior to that amendment, …

On September 18, 2024, four men, all current or former prisoners incarcerated within the custody of the South Carolina Department of Corrections (DOC), sued the agency and Director Bryan P. Stirling in the Court of Common Pleas for the Seventh Judicial Circuit in Spartanburg, alleging eight causes of action related to the DOC’s failure to pay the “prevailing wage” for work they performed for private industries while they were employed under the DOC’s Industries program.

That program is certified under the federal Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP). According to the National Correctional Industries Association, PIECP “exempts certified federal, state, local, and tribal departments of corrections from normal restrictions on the sale of offender-made goods in interstate commerce.” By lifting restrictions, it permits them “to sell offender-made goods to the Federal Government in amounts exceeding the $10,000 maximum normally imposed on such transactions.”

The four prisoners, Damon Jones, Jason Turmon, Ronnie McCoy, and Kevin Casey, alleged in their complaint that they were unlawfully paid just $7.25 an hour, which has been South Carolina’s minimum wage for three decades, instead of the federally required “prevailing wage.” As the complaint recalled, PIECP programs are supposed to place prisoners “in …

On October 17, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that 26 cell checks performed within 13 hours by six Los Angeles County jailers who nevertheless failed to assess the condition of a detainee later found dead were sufficient to create a genuine issue of …

In a settlement agreement dated May 28, 2024, Colorado’s Jefferson County agreed to pay $500,000 to Frederick Fisk, a former detainee at the county jail who suffered substantial injuries to his face after guards used a jujitsu move to take him to the ground while he was handcuffed.

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On November 13, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld a jury award of more than $8.7 million to the Estate of detainee who died in Utah’s Davis County Jail. In its ruling, the Court agreed that jail Nurse Marvin Anderson and other County officials …

On November 15, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reinstated a deliberate indifference claim lodged by Missouri prisoner Tremonti Perry, whose alleged medical neglect left him in a coma—and therefore unable to complete the prison grievance process. His complaint had been dismissed for just that …

On October 21, 2024, after a trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, judgment was entered awarding former state prisoner Justin C. Mustafa $1.3 million on his claim that he was repeatedly stabbed by Defendant state prison guard Christopher Byars. 

In December 2018, according …