by Ed Lyon
The state of Illinois seems to be getting serious about downsizing its prison population and reducing the number of offenders who return to prison after being paroled. Governor Bruce Rauner created a task force in 2015, the Illinois State Commission of Criminal Justice and Sentencing ...
by Ed Lyon
Between 1998 and 2014, at least 23 Texas prisoners died due to excessive heat in housing units and transport buses. Most Texas state prisons are not air conditioned. A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of prisoners at the Wallace Pack Unit initially resulted in an injunction ...
by Ed Lyon
Arkansas state prisoner Jacob J. Townsend was working at the Tucker Unit’s water treatment plant when his supervisor, Terry Murphy, ordered him to work with chlorine gas. Townsend was not given training or equipment for using the dangerous chemical.
Arkansas prisons employ an informal resolution process prior ...
by Ed Lyon
In 1990, Gordon F. Goldsby received consecutive sentences of 10 years, life and 25 years for crimes he committed in Missouri in 1972. After discharging his 10-year sentence, he began serving the life sentence. In 2015 he sought a declaration of his right to be released, relying ...
by Ed Lyon
On May 19, 2014, Thomas Hamm went to the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City to visit his same-sex domestic partner, identified as P.F.
Hamm and P.F., who planned to get married, hugged and kissed at the start of their visit just as other couples ...
by Ed Lyon
Since the 1962 publication of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a mirror image of the best-selling novel’s plot has played out in U.S. prisons. Author Ken Kasey wrote a work of fiction about a prisoner who was sent to a mental hospital. In fact, mentally ill ...
by Ed Lyon
Previously, Nevada state prisoner Robert Leslie Stockmeier won a case against the prison system over claims involving dietary issues in Stockmeier v. Green, 340 P.3d 583 (Nev. 2014).
The Nevada Supreme Court found the state’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and staff were not examining actual meals for ...
by Ed Lyon
Scottye Miller served two misdemeanor sentences, one “memorialized in a felony judgment” for harassing and assaulting his girlfriend of many years, entered in 2010 and 2011. Miller was released from the Department of Corrections (DOC) for community supervision on October 15, 2012. Among the many of his ...
by Ed Lyon
During the noon meal on February 5, 2014, Illinois prison guard Nathan Berry found alcohol and an altered TV in a property box in a cell shared by Osbaldo Jose-Nicolas and Edgar Diaz at the Menard Correctional Center.
Both prisoners were directed to a holding cell when ...
by Ed Lyon
Prisoners who peacefully advocate for their rights, such as by filing lawsuits and grievances, and engaging in non-violent protests, regularly risk retaliation by prison officials.
That was the case following a nationwide work strike that was called by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS) – a prisoners’ rights advocacy ...
