The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a lower court improperly deferred a qualified immunity determination to the jury. The appellate court decided that jail guards, a jail physician and a paramedic were not entitled to qualified immunity in a Tennessee prisoner’s death, though qualified immunity was granted ...
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that attorney’s fees awarded under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) may not be withheld to pay debts owed to the federal government.
South Dakota attorney Catherine G. Ratliff successfully represented two claimants in their efforts to obtain Social Security benefits. ...
In separate incidents, five Oklahoma prison and jail guards have been charged with crimes ranging from contraband smuggling and assault to murder.
Former Sequoyah County jail guard Jarrod Anthony Yates pleaded guilty on October 2, 2008 to violating the civil rights of an unnamed detainee by punching, kneeing and stomping ...
On March 27, 2009, former Mobile County, Alabama Circuit Court Judge Herman Thomas was indicted on 57 charges for allegedly checking young male prisoners out of the Metro Jail, taking them to his office, and paddling them on their bare buttocks or asking them to engage in sex acts. Seven ...
Four Ohio prison employees resigned or were fired amid an investigation into their improper relationships with prisoners, while in unrelated incidents four state prison guards were accused of sexual misconduct, smuggling drugs and soliciting bribes.
The Lorain/Medina Community-Based Correctional Facility (CBCF), a secure rehabilitation and substance abuse treatment center for ...
On February 3, 2009, default judgment was entered in a lawsuit filed against a Colorado prison guard who had raped and sodomized a female prisoner. Afterwards, several other individual defendants and the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) agreed to settle the prisoner’s suit for $250,000, including attorney’s fees. The rapist ...
At least 92 detainees died in immigration detention facilities between October 2003 and February 2009, according to an updated list compiled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The list, which was obtained by the New York Times in March 2009 following a Freedom of Information Act request, revises a previous ...
The number of people incarcerated in state prisons for drug offenses has increased an astronomical 1,150 percent since 1980, increasing from 40,000 to 500,000 prisoners, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics cited in a research paper by The Sentencing Project (TSP). The number of people now incarcerated for drug offenses ...
Oregon Prosecutes Teen to Avoid Liability; Bizarre 2 ½ Year Legal Battle Ends
by Mark Wilson
Seventeen year old David Simmons and his fourteen year old girlfriend began a sexual relationship which continued after they turned 18 and 15, respectively. The relationship ended, however, on September 27, 2006 when the ...
Like every other state, Oregon has been hit hard by the worst economic crisis in recent American history. Yet standing in an ever-deepening fiscal crater, prosecutors and victims’ rights groups keep handing out shovels and Oregonians stubbornly refuse to stop digging. This may not be what President Obama envisioned when ...
