by Ed Lyon

On June 20, 2019, a two-justice majority on a Nevada court of appeals panel reversed and remanded a district court’s dismissal of a state prisoner’s civil rights complaint over the removal of good time credits. The ruling is unpublished.

Darryl E. Gholson sued the Nevada Department of ...

by Ed Lyon

The year 2019 was a busy one for a grand jury in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Indictments were handed down for seven guards, a former associate warden and a former director of the county’s jail, located in Cleveland. They are among 11 current and former jail staffers to ...

by Ed Lyon

Back in 2011, the United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) performed an anonymous survey at the Minnesota Department of Corrections’ (MDOC) Shakopee women’s prison.

The survey’s results showed that Shakopee was among the worst prisons in the nation for sexual misconduct. Faced with ...

by Ed Lyon

A pilot program started by a nonprofit in Alameda County, California seeks to meet an acute need for shelter faced by a group that doesn’t get much positive attention: recently released prisoners. Run by former prosecutor Alex Busansky, the nonprofit is called Impact Justice (IJ), and its ...

by Ed Lyon

Nationally known actress, fashionista and activist Kim Kardashian West has two new loves. One of them is the law and the other is a burning desire to help society’s lowest esteemed class, its convicted criminals.

Kardashian, the wife of rapper Kanye West, has recently completed a one-year ...

by Ed Lyon

Regarding employment for newly released prisoners, two stereotypical jobs often come to mind, washing dishes and bussing tables at diners or restaurants. While those jobs are certainly still available, more and more prisoners are taking advantage of hospitality education and training to become cooks and chefs, filling ...

by Ed Lyon

Regular readers of Prison Legal News may remember the April 2019 article (page 61) chronicling the story of Wisconsin prison guard Sergeant Robert Wilcox. Wilcox placed images of a rat, signifying an informant, next to the names of five prisoners working for a gang intelligence investigator, Captain ...

by Ed Lyon

Oregon citizen Tina Ferri began serving a 70-month sentence for felony assault and methamphetamine possession at the Oregon Department of Corrections’ (ODC) Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (CCCF) for women in October of 2017.

In March of the following year, an Oregon appeal court reversed her assault conviction, ...

by Ed Lyon

In January 2018, Jose Guadalupesettled a lawsuit for a total of $1,250,000 for a “severe beating” he suffered at the hands of jailers in the city’s notorious Rikers Island complex. He would eventually net a bit less than half of that amount after paying attorney’s fees and ...

by Ed Lyon

A lengthy article concerning e-tablets in state prisons was published in the April 2018 issue of PLN (p.44). One of the warnings set out in that article concerned the high fees accompanying apps for those devices. JPay stands out as a major provider of e-tablets, a variant ...