by John E. Dannenberg
The US Supreme Court ruled that under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), exhaustion of administrative remedies is required in all prisoner civil rights suits pertaining to prison life, regardless of whether they involve only general prison circumstances or whether they allege excessive force or some ...
U.S. Supreme Court: Qualified Immunity Determination Must Precede Trial On Merits
by John E. Dannenberg
The US Supreme Court held in a suit against a military police (MP) officer for use of excessive force in an arrest, that before analyzing whether such force was per se excessive, a threshold question ...
ADA/RA Suit For Sign Language Interpreters Proceeds for Prospective Injunctive Relief
by John E. Dannenberg
The Eighth Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled that a deaf-mute Missouri State prisoner's ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and RA (Rehabilitation Act) based suit for sign language interpreters may proceed in US district court ...
Jail Policy To Not Segregate Gangs Does Not Violate Constitution
by John E. Dannenberg
The Seventh Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled that the Cook County (Chicago), Illinois jail did not violate the Constitution by failing to implement a policy segregating prisoners by gang affiliation. However, it distinguished the tier ...
by John E. Dannenburg
( The Fifth Circuit US Court of Appeals held that the statute requiring public notification of the release of federal prisoners convicted of drug trafficking or a crime of violence applied only to the current conviction, not to the prisoner's past record.
Richard Henrikson was finishing ...
County Supervisors Liable For Indemnifications
by John E. Dannenberg
The Los Angeles (LA), California County Board of Supervisors made official decisions, and thus a policy, to indemnify their county sheriffs so as to willfully (i.e., in bad faith) protect the sheriffs from punitive damages even after they had admittedly acted ...
by John E. Dannenberg
A New York state prisoner who had been subjected to inhumane and unsanitary living conditions was found by the Second Circuit US Court of Appeals to have stated a claim under 42 USC §1983 for violation of his Eighth Amendment rights to be free from cruel ...
"Barbaric Conditions" At Wisconsin Supermax Result in Preliminary Injunction To Transfer Mentally Ill Prisoners
by John Dannenberg
Noting that the Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause protects the mental health of prisoners no less than their physical health, and observing mistreatment of seriously mentally ill prisoners "bordering on barbaric," ...
by John E. Dannenberg
In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly construed Bivens actions suing private federal prison contractors to be available only against their individual prison employees, and not the parent corporations.
Reversing the Second Circuit US Court of Appeals in Malesko v. Correctional Services Corp. [CSC], ...
Intangible Religious Freedom Claims Not Barred By PLRA
by John E. Dannenberg
The U.S. District Court (District of Massachusetts) held that the Prison Litigation Reform Act's (PLRA) proscription of claims for emotional damages, in the absence of physical harm, did not foreclose claims for violation of constitutionally protected religious rights ...
