Skip navigation

Articles by Harold Hempstead

Imprisoned Former Alabama House Speaker Caught Admitting to Phony “Apology” Can Keep His Radio Stations Running

by Harold Hempstead

In a decision released on May 9, 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allowed imprisoned former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard (R-Lee County) to keep broadcast licenses for a half-dozen radio stations he owns in the Auburn-Opelika market. Meanwhile his request for early release has languished in ...

$7,000 Default Judgment Awarded in Failure to Protect Suit Against Former Arkansas Jail Guard

by Harold Hempstead

On November 23, 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas awarded $7,000 in compensatory damages to a state prisoner who, while held in a Pine Bluff jail, was injured in a beating by fellow prisoners when a former guard failed to intervene.

The ...

$17.5 Million Paid to Ohio Prisoner Left Quadriplegic After Brutal Attack by Guards

by Harold Hempstead

In November 2021, Ohio state prisoner Seth Fletcher received a $17,500,000 settlement to conclude the civil rights complaint filed on his behalf against guards at Chillicothe Correctional Institution (CCI), after the developmentally disabled 21-year-old was the victim of a brutal assault that left him physically disabled, too. ...

Overdoses Climb in Colorado Prisons and Jails With Drugs Smuggled by Mail, Uber Eats

by Harold Hempstead

A Denver jail guard was fired on April 29, 2022, after an investigation revealed he allowed deliveries from Uber Eats in which drugs were hidden and later used by a detainee to commit suicide. The news comes on the heels of three recent fatal drug overdoses in ...

Investigation Finds Hundreds of Unreported Deaths in Tennessee Prisons and Jails

by Harold Hempstead

A November 2021 investigation by Knoxville TV station WBIR found prisons and jails across the Volunteer State were underreporting in-custody deaths to the state Bureau of Investigation (TBI), in apparent violation of Tennessee law. The investigation counted 602 people who died in custody from 2017 to 2020, ...

Connecticut Supreme Court Rules That Prisoner Was Denied Due Process with Sex Offender Classification

by Harold Hempstead

On July 17, 2021, the Supreme Court of Connecticut held that when the state Department of Corrections (DOC) classified him as a sex offender despite not having a conviction on a sex offense, a state prisoner was denied his rights to procedural and substantive due process under ...

$638,250 Judgment Against Georgia Jail Guard Who Orchestrated Prisoner’s Beating

by Harold Hempstead

On November 9, 2021, a federal judge ordered a former guard to pay $638,250 to a prisoner whose beating by fellow prisoners the guard orchestrated at the Newton County Jail in Covington, Georgia, in 2019. It was not clear, though, how the prisoner would collect from the ...

Tennessee CoreCivic Prison Guard Indicted for Beating Unresisting Prisoner, Attempting Cover-up

by Harold Hempstead

On September 27, 2021, a three-count indictment was filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, accusing a former guard at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville of violating a prisoner’s civil rights and obstructing justice by attempting to cover up his crime. The ...