by John E. Dannenberg
The Minnesota Court of Appeals held that a 1999 statutory amendment mandating all sex offenders to undergo mental health treatment was an ex post facto law as applied to a prisoner sentenced in 1985. The earlier version of the statute had only provided for voluntary participation …
by John E. Dannenberg
The Supreme Court of New York held that the Court of Claims erred when it dismissed a prisoner’s damages claim for injuries suffered when he was not placed in protective custody as had been ordered by the Criminal Court.
Kenneth Hunt was arrested on September 15, …
by John E. Dannenberg
When a private prison corporation sued Director Jeanne Woodford of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) for alleged defamatory statements made against the corporation's performance on a CDCR contract, which were made in the proper discharge of Woodford's official duties, she was held absolutely …
by John E. Dannenberg
On August 8, 2008, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) discharged prisoner Michael McHone from its Edgefield, South Carolina prison to spend his first night in a motel. The next day, a Saturday, a prison worker took McHone to Asheville and dropped him off in front …
by John E. Dannenberg
The Supreme Court of Nassau County granted an Article 78 petition against Nassau County that enjoined it from charging non-indigent prisoners a “per diem” incarceration fee, thereby voiding Title 21 and 21-A of the Miscellaneous Laws of Nassau County (2006).
The New York State Commission of …
by John E. Dannenberg
The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, following remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, held that a California prisoner had not exhausted his administrative remedies when he failed to file his initial grievance (Form 602) within the 15-working-day time constraint levied by California Department of Corrections …
by John E. Dannenberg
On June 7, 2011, a scant seven days after the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic ruling affirming a three-judge panel’s order to reduce overcrowding in California’s state prisons (Brown v. Plata, No. 09-1233 (see PLN, July 2011, p. 1)), the state belatedly responded to the panel’s January …
Ninth Circuit: Warrantless Parole Search Unconstitutional Where "Residence" Was Only an "Emergency Address" Listed Years Earlier
By John E. Dannenberg
The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a warrantless police search for a parolee, who had not been seen at the address but who had listed it years …
by John E. Dannenberg
The California Court of Appeal held that because California’s 1996 voter-approved Medical Marijuana Program Act (Proposition 115) permits a citizen to possess marijuana for medical use, bringing such approved marijuana into jail could not be punished as a felony under Penal Code § 4573.5 (which generally …
by John E. Dannenberg
In a landmark ruling upholding provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) that permit specially convened three-judge federal court panels to order reductions in state prison populations due to overcrowding (18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(3)), a bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, affirmed …
