by Matt Clarke
On February 1, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a district court committed clear error when it found that a severely mentally ill Illinois prisoner lied about being endangered in an attempt to “sneak around” rules that would prevent him from ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 9, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reinstated the claim of a Muslim federal prisoner allegedly frustrated in his attempts to observe his religion in prison, including denial of the opportunity to participate in group prayer five times a day.
Ahmed ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 14, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reinstated the claim of a woman whose son fatally hanged himself in Louisiana’s Bossier Parish jail in March 2019. In doing so, the Court said that a district court erred in dismissing the case ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 21, 2022, the Vermont Supreme Court remanded a case to the state Department of Corrections (DOC) so that it could respond on the record to a prisoner’s allegations it improperly used his expunged convictions to make classification decisions that would ultimately affect his release, in ...
by Matt Clarke
In a settlement reached on March 1, 2022, Santa Fe County, New Mexico, agreed to pay $825,000 to resolve claims filed over the heroin withdrawal death of a detainee at the county’s Adult Detention Facility (ADF) six years earlier.
When Ricardo Jose Ortiz was booked into ADF ...
by Kevin W. Bliss, Matt Clarke, Ashleigh N. Dye and Keith Sanders
As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes from the headlines, its full effect on prisoners and detainees is coming into clearer view. One of the first glimpses was provided in a December 2021 report by the federal Department of Justice ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 9, 2022, the Supreme Court of Arizona ruled that a defendant who asserts attorney-client privilege for communications made from jail to his attorney, including text messages, video visits and phone calls, may not rely on a blanket exception but must make a prima facie showing ...
by Matt Clarke
On June 10, 2022, a final settlement agreement was approved in a federal class-action lawsuit challenging the safety from COVID-19 of detainees held for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in California’s Yuba County Jail (YCJ) and Mesa Verde Detention Center (MVDC). The settlement will protect around ...
by Matt Clarke
On December 23, 2021, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that a state court of appeals erred when it denied a state prisoner’s motion for statutory damages against the Cleveland Police Forensic Laboratory (CPFL) for improperly withholding public records he requested. The Court then set the damage ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 10, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that an Arkansas prisoner had not failed to state an actionable claim against prison medical officials when he accused them of not maintaining his bilateral hearing aids. The decision reversed a ruling by ...
