by Harold Hempstead
Pickleball is one of America’s fastestgrowing sports. Played with a paddle and a large plastic ball on an outdoor court, the game offers the speed of ping pong with less risk of an ankle injury than tennis, while still a more competitive alternative to badminton for aging Baby Boomers.
It’s also being played by prisoners held in the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC), at least a few hundred of them. For at least a few days. As of February 2023, the game had been introduced to eight prisons in the Sunshine State by Roger BelAir, 76, a self-style pickleball guru traveling the nation on his own dime to introduce the sport into jails and prisons.
BelAir said he got the idea while watching a TV program about Chicago’s jail, and he was struck by images of idle detainees. “I said to my wife, ‘They ought to be playing pickleball,’” he recalled. He sent a letter to the jail’s chief, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who noted BelAir “was offering something for free, which obviously got my attention in a hurry.”
Of course, Florida can afford to pay for programming such as education and sports. It even has ...
by Harold Hempstead
On April 20, 2022, the federal court for the Middle District of Tennessee issued a highly unusal order enjoining the Davidson County medical examiner from performing an autopsy or collecting bodily fluids from a prisoner following his execution by lethal injection.
Oscar Franklin Smith filed his complaint ...
by Harold Hempstead
On February 17, 2023, an assistant to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D) signed a settlement with a group of state prisoners, resolving claims they were subjected to retaliation after a January 2020 melee at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center (SBCC) that sent three guards to the hospital.
The ...
by Harold Hempstead
On April 20, 2022, the federal court for the Middle District of Tennessee issued a highly unusal order enjoining the Davidson County medical examiner from performing an autopsy or collecting bodily fluids from a prisoner following his execution by lethal injection.
Oscar Franklin Smith filed his complaint ...
by Harold Hempstead
On May 3, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment favoring for defendant officials with Wayne County, Michigan, in a complaint filed by one mentally ill prisoner who was impregnated by another while they were confined for treatment.
Felicia Morgan was ...
by Harold Hempstead
On April 8, 2022, a former supervising guard at a private prison operated for the Tennessee Department of Corrections pleaded guilty to two counts of civil rights violations for assaulting a compliant prisoner. When sentenced in May 2023, the former security threat group coordinator for CoreCivic’s Trousdale ...
by Harold Hempstead
On February 10, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld the judgment of a district court that convicted the former Sheriff of Arkansas’ Franklin County and sentenced him to four years in federal prison for abusing jail detainees. That leaves Anthony “Tony” Boen, ...
by Harold Hempstead
On August 16, 2022, in a question of first impression for federal appellate courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the complaint of a Virginia jail detainee presented sufficient facts to support the conclusion that gender dysphoria is not an identity disorder ...
by Harold Hempstead
On July 15, 2022, in a case accusing private prison giant CoreCivic of a Tennessee prisoner’s wrongful death, a federal magistrate judge issued a gag order restricting public comments on the case made by Plaintiff’s attorney.
The suit was brought by Marie Newby in federal court for ...
by Harold Hempstead
On July 25, 2022, Colorado agreed to pay former state prisoner Susan Ullery $300,000 to settle her claims that she was sexually harassed by a former guard — who also sexually assaulted her while she wore a wire for prison officials trying to catch him in the ...
