by Matt Clarke
On October 26, 2020, federal prisoners aided by civil rights groups and a major international law firm, filed a class action lawsuit challenging the handling of a COVID-19 outbreak by the Bureau of Prison (BOP) at the Federal Correctional Complex (FCC) at Butner, North Carolina.
With 27 ...
by Matt Clarke
On August 19, 2020, the parents of a prisoner who committed suicide a year earlier at a privately operated Tennessee prison filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Nashville-based CoreCivic, alleging the company’s employees ignored threats and attempts by the prisoner to kill himself as well as ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 15, 2020, the Montana Supreme Court reversed the granting of summary judgment in a case challenging a jail’s blanket strip search policy on constitutional and statutory grounds. The court held that the policy was not unconstitutional but did violate the clear language of § 46-5-105, ...
by Matt Clarke
On December 8, 2020, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry (ADCRR) announced that 655 of the 1,066 prisoners held at the La Paz unit in the state prison complex in Yuma had tested positive for COVID-19. It is ADCRR’s largest outbreak of the disease since ...
by Matt Clarke
Members of National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) maintained their place at the forefront of the movement for racial justice even while encapsulated in the National Basketball Association (NBA) bubble during the 2020 championship playoffs. The basketball court inside the Disney World bubble was proudly emblazoned with “Black Lives Matter” with an impossible-to-miss font size.
NBPA members went on a three-day playoff strike in August 2020, triggered by the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who was left paralyzed, shot seven times as he leaned into a car. The strike resulted in an agreement between the league and players to establish a social-justice coalition and associated advertising with a focus on civic engagement, ballot access and reform of police and the criminal justice system. Franchises that own their own arenas pledged to “work with local elections officials to convert the facility into a voting location for the 2020 election.”
Yet the players and league were strangely silent about one of the owners exploiting incarcerated individuals for profit.
As reported in The American Prospect, Tom Gores, the owner of the Detroit Pistons NBA franchise, is a billionaire who founded Platinum Equity, a private ...
by Matt Clarke
On September 16, 2020, the estate of a woman who died while incarcerated at the Bi-State Justice Center Jail in Texarkana filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Bowie County, Texas, LaSalle Corrections and its parent company, Southwestern Correctional. The lawsuit alleges denial of medical care, which caused the prisoner’s slow, tortuous death. The jail has a history of killing prisoners through deliberate indifference to serious medical needs.
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards has cited the jail and its operator numerous times for noncompliance in connection to the deaths of multiple prisoners, yet LaSalle continues to be awarded the contract, and little has changed.
Holly Barlow-Austin, 46, was arrested for a probation violation on April 5, 2019. She required medication for HIV, depression and bipolar disorder, as well as a medication to prevent a potentially deadly fungal infection due to her highly compromised immune system. During intake, her blood pressure was 118/73, her other vitals were normal, and she was able-bodied, hydrated and well nourished. She informed LaSalle medical staff of her medication needs.
Jail staff failed to provide the needed medication and on April 8, 2019, Barlow-Austin’s husband brought her prescription medications to the jail ...
by Matt Clarke
In August 2020, New York City agreed to settle a lawsuit over the death 15 months before of a Dominican-born transgender detainee who died of epileptic seizures while in segregation at the Rose M. Singer Center (RMSC) on the city’s Rikers Island jail complex. The $5.9 million settlement is larger than any previous settlement for a prisoner’s death in a city jail.
Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, 27, a member of the prominent drag-scene ballroom group House of Xtravaganza, was arrested on misdemeanor prostitution and drug possession charges in 2017. She was sent to a diversion court, but missed court dates, resulting in a bench warrant being issued for her arrest. In 2019, she was arrested for assaulting a taxi driver.
Her alleged behavior motivated arresting officers to take Polanco to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. She was admitted and held for three days, and prescribed the anti-seizure medication Keppra upon discharge. She was taken to arraignment where a judge ordered her released on the assault charge. But he served the outstanding bench warrant and set bail at $501, an amount she could not afford.
Polanco was booked into RMSC, where she told staff she had a seizure disorder. ...
by Matt Clarke
Thanks to a public records request by The Associated Press, news broke in March 2020 that Louisiana-based private prison firm LaSalle Management Company had settled for $177,500 a lawsuit over a 2016 incident in which five prisoners were pepper-sprayed while handcuffed and kneeling.
Adley T. Campbell, Darin Washington, Sidney Stephens, Jareth Vinet, and Jimmy Klobas were incarcerated at the LaSalle-operated Richwood Correctional Center in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, when they were taken out of a dormitory, strip-searched and questioned whether their tattoos were gang-related. After they put their clothes back on, they were handcuffed and taken to a location known as the “White House,” where they were accused of being gang members, forced to kneel, and sprayed in the face with a chemical agent, which the documents called “mace” but was most likely pepper spray.
With the assistance of lawyers including Savannah, Georgia, attorney David J. Utter, the men filed a federal civil rights action in 2017, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, against LaSalle, its insurers, and several of its former correctional employees, including Captain Roderick Douglas, 37, Sergeant Demario Shafer, 33, Lieutenant Christopher Loring, 35, and guards Quintal Credit, 26, and David Parker, 27. The ...
by Matt Clarke
On June 12, 2020, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit against four Texas police department employees alleging they knew a prisoner was suicidal when they gave him a blanket, failed to remove the blanket from his cell and failed to monitor him before he used the blanket to hang himself.
A passerby told City of Kemah, Texas Police Officer Marcus Way that a man, later identified as Chad Ernest Lee Silvis, 26, was threatening to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. Way reported a possible “jumper” on his police radio. Officers James Melton and Ruben Kimball, along with dispatcher Anna Maria Whelan, heard the broadcast. Way, Kimball and Melton met at the bridge and, after conversing with Silvis, Melton managed to forcibly pull him off the bridge railing. They took him to the city jail and watched while he was booked.
Kimball prepared a cell and gave Silvis a blanket. Way told Kimball to take his shoes. After he was booked, Way, Kimball, Melton, and Whelan all observed Silvis in his cell with the blanket.
Silvis was disruptive, yelling for medical help, banging his hands against the cell door and shouting that he ...
by Matt Clarke
On June 11, 2020, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reinstated some of the claims brought by a couple seeking permission to marry, one of whom is an immigration detainee being held in a private prison operated by GEO, under contract with the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
Brian A. Davis, an immigration detainee being held at a Pennsylvania private prison that houses foreign nationals awaiting deportation or deportation proceedings, sought permission to marry his U.S. citizen fiancée, Fredericka K. Bedford. They complied with the prison’s regulations, which exceeded the BOP’s, but permission was denied.
The couple filed a federal civil rights lawsuit pursuant to Bevins, 42 U.S.D. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985(3) and 2000d, and other state and federal laws, alleging they were denied their constitutional right to be married because of unlawful discrimination. The district court adopted without analysis a magistrate judge’s report recommending dismissal of all claims. The report reasoned that GEO employees were not federal actors and the two federal officials who were sued were not properly served.
On appeal, the Third Circuit held that the district court erred when it failed to undertake the required two-step process to determine whether ...
