by Douglas Ankney
In June 2023, the South Carolina Insurance Reserve Fund paid $8,700 to each of 23 former detainees at Berkeley County’s Hill-Finklea Detention Center (HFDC)—a total of $200,100—to settle claims they were exposed to toxic fumes while in custody.
According to the complaint they filed, the detainees were ...
by Douglas Ankney
When Indiana state prisoner Tony Love participated in a brawl, he was apparently unaware of the severity of the consequences he faced. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit made sure he knew, ruling on July 7, 2023, that the loss of more than ...
by Douglas Ankney
On July 10, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dismissed Texas prisoner Anthony Prescott’s appeal, once again explaining the requirement of 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) that applications to waive filing fees and proceed in forma pauperis (IFP) must be denied where a prisoner plaintiff ...
by Douglas Ankney
A report on July 6, 2023, from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs (WLCCR&UA) exposed abuses suffered by prisoners at the hands of Bureau of Prisons (BOP) guards while confined in the now-closed Special Management Unit (SMU) at the U.S. Penitentiary (USP) in ...
by Douglas Ankney
On July 13, 2023, Oklahoma’s Court of Criminal Appeals granted a new trial to state prisoner Robert Leon Hashagen III, 60, after finding his trial judge and his prosecuting attorney failed to disclose their prior sexual relationship to his defense team.
Hashagen was convicted by a jury ...
by Douglas Ankney
On July 7, 2023, Judge Marsha J. Pechman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington found the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) in material breach of an agreement that settled a long-running class-action accusing the agency of “violating the constitutional ...
by Douglas Ankney
On July 20, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of a suit alleging delayed medical care caused the death of Eugene Washington while he was held in pretrial detention at Illinois’ Winnebago County Jail (WJC).
Washington’s cellmate, Lamar ...
by Douglas Ankney
In a surprising twist to a horrific story, the State of Hawaii agreed on July 27, 2023, to pay six state prisoners whose federal civil rights suit alleged they were sexually assaulted at Women’s Community Correction Center (WCCC) a $2 million settlement—after a jury found they were ...
by Douglas Ankney
On June 21, 2023, Judge Anthony J. Battaglia of the federal court for the Southern District of California signed an order in a suit alleging violations at San Diego County jails of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. ch. 126, § 12101 et seq. The Court ...
by Douglas Ankney
On July 13, 2023, Kendall Brian Morgan, 45, a former undersheriff in Oklahoma’s LeFlore County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO), was sentenced to 22 months in federal prison, followed by 36 months of supervised release, for beating a handcuffed detainee in the county jail.
Morgan was indicted in federal ...
