On October 6, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, overturned the terms of a settlement agreement between taxpayer group and the state of Kentucky in a case challenging the manner in which the state provides foster care to children in state custody. The taxpayer group had argued ...
James Vaughn and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) entered into a settlement agreement in July 2001 to settle a discrimination complaint brought by the Vietnam veteran. The complaint, which settled for $2,500, alleged that Vaughn was employed as a prison guard at the Federal Correctional Institution in Phoenix (FCI ...
In the latest installment of a 24-year battle over the treatment of mentally ill prisoners in the California prison system, the state agreed in August 2014 to begin removing those prisoners from isolation units and transition them into special housing that will allow them more time out of their cells, ...
On July 9, 2014, an assistant warden at the Dixon Correctional Center in Illinois was dismissed from his position and escorted off the prison grounds after it was discovered that he tried to give a former prisoner some money.
Charles Fasano "violated department rules," said a source inside the department, ...
On July 18, 2014, the Nebraska Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the right of two members of the infamous “Beatrice Six” to receive up to $500,000 each in compensation despite the fact that they had both falsely confessed to a brutal murder.
In this convoluted case with many players, Helen Wilson, ...
On July 21, 2014, a California federal judge approved class-action status in a lawsuit filed by state prisoners challenging the statewide practice of race-based prison lockdowns. U.S. District Court Judge Troy L. Nunley of the Eastern District of California also appointed two law firms to represent the class. A final ...
After a bifurcated bench trial on the question of damages only, a former New York state prisoner was awarded over $700,000 by a Court of Claims judge for injuries suffered after the ex-prisoner fell while exiting a prison van 13 years earlier.
In 1999, while exiting the back of a ...
A New York Court of Claims judge awarded a former prisoner $75,000 in damages after finding the defendant, the State of New York, 100% responsible for his severed fingertip. While incarcerated at the Marcy Correctional Facility near Utica, NY in January 2005, Gregory Fagan was working on the prison's compost ...
Tragic Death at Washington Jail Results in Changes, $1.3 Million Settlement
by Lonnie Burton
Lyndsey Lason’s life was by no means perfect, but she didn’t deserve to die 13 days after being booked into the Snohomish County jail in Everett, Washington in 2011. Yet when her repeated complaints of breathing ...
Minnesota County Jail Pays $1 Million in Medical Neglect Case
by Lonnie Burton
In a settlement that is believed to be the largest of its kind for a medical neglect claim in the state of Minnesota, Hennepin County agreed to pay $1 million to a mentally ill prisoner who stabbed ...
