Skip navigation

Articles by Harold Hempstead

Florida Returning Canteen Funds for Prisoner Programming

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 ...

Condemned Tennessee Prisoner Wins Fight Against Autopsy

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 seeking injunctive relief under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc, on April 14, 2022. Explaining that his sincerely held Christian belief teaches “that his body is a temple of God,” he said “that it is OK to accept medical treatment to prolong life, but that it is not OK to alter the body in any other way.” Therefore, performing an autopsy or other invasive procedure on his body postmortem would violate his beliefs.

County Medical Examiner Dr. Feng Li said he would not perform the autopsy “provided no extraordinary information comes to light during or following the execution.” However, he intended “to collect samples of... Smith’s blood, urine, and vitreous fluids” postmortem. Li further contended that Tennessee has a compelling interest in the samples for the purpose of “assessing the efficacy and potential secondary effects of the lethal injection process,” and that collection ...

Massachusetts Settles One of Three Suits Alleging Retaliation by Prison Guards for Assault on One of Their Own

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 suit is one of three filed by prisoners since the incident. In their complaint, Carl Larocque, Robert Silva-Prentice and Tamik Kirkland, along with the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (ACDL) and the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), detailed for Suffolk County Superior Court how guards denied them and other SBCC prisoners “attorney visits and phone calls for almost three weeks” in retaliation for the incident.

“If you put hands on an officer,” the complaint quoted one guard, “you will all pay.”

The court granted the prisoners a preliminary injunction in February 2020, halting policies of the state Department of Correction (DOC) that restricted them from keeping legal paperwork in their cells and limited opportunities for attorney phone calls and visits, even during business hours. [See: PLN, Apr. 2020, p.26.]

Under the settlement that was reached, SBCC prisoners whose property is seized must get it back in three ...

Condemned Tennessee Prisoner Wins Fight Against Autopsy

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 ...

Sixth Circuit Won’t Hold Michigan County Liable After Mentally Ill Prisoner Impregnates Another

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 ...

Former CoreCivic Guard Pleads Guilty to Deprivation of Tennessee Prisoner’s Rights

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 ...

Eighth Circuit Affirms Conviction and Sentencing of Former Arkansas Sheriff for Assaulting Detainees

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, ...

Fourth Circuit Says Prisoners with Gender Dysphoria not Excluded from ADA Protection

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 ...

After Federal Judge Censors Lawyer’s Tweets About CoreCivic, Company Settles Suit Over Tennessee Prisoner’s Murder by Cellmate

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 ...

$300,000 Paid by Colorado to Prisoner Sexually Harassed by Guard with Foot Fetish

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 ...