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Articles by Matthew Clarke

Kansas Supreme Court Revives Prisoner’s Challenge 
to Loss of Parental Rights

On September 6, 2024, the Supreme Court of Kansas held that a prisoner’s due process rights were violated when he was able only to observe his parental rights termination hearing via videoconferencing and was unable to testify or consult with his attorney during the hearing.

Federal prisoner “H.S.” and “R.A.” ...

$5.6 Million Settlement for California Prisoner’s Wife 
Strip-searched During Visit

On September 5, 2024, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) gave the last signoff to a $5.6 million settlement with the wife of a state prisoner who was forced to strip and submit to an invasive body cavity search when she went to visit him.

When Christina Cardenas, ...

Academic Study of Prison Guards’ Use of Excessive Force 
Details Sad State of Civil Rights for Abused Prisoners

In a research paper published on October 15, 2024, UCLA law professor Sharon Dolovich examined the state of civil rights law regarding excessive use of force by American prison guards and concluded that the current standard is woefully inadequate to protect prisoners from abuse or permit redress once excessive force ...

Multitudes Caged for Failure to Pay Child Support, Driving Mass Incarceration

by Matt Clarke

On August 22, 2024, the federal court for the Eastern District of Kentucky sentenced Jesse Kipf to 81 months in federal prison for hacking into the Hawai’i Death Registry the year before. It was a strange crime; in his guilty plea, Kipf, 39, admitted to using the ...

Los Angeles County Pays $24 Million to Two Former Prisoners Wrongly Convicted as Teens of 1997 Murder

by Matt Clarke

On May 7, 2024, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a $24 million settlement for two California men who were wrongly convicted as teenagers of a 1997 murder, based on an unreliable jailhouse snitch’s testimony and falsified evidence.

On June 28, 1997, John Klene and ...

Federal Watchdog Calls Out BOP for Spiking Suicide Risk at Pennsylvania Lockup

by Matt Clarke

On September 26, 2024, United States Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz released findings from an unannounced inspection of the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Numerous violations of federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) policy were found at the 1,128-bed medium-security prison, which ...

Eighth Circuit: Arkansas Prisoner Who Had Consensual Sex With Guard Cannot Sustain Eighth Amendment Claim

by Matt Clarke

On September 20, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that a prisoner’s consensual sexual encounters with a guard cannot, as a matter of law, constitute the pain required to sustain a claim under the Eighth Amendment. Though a blow to Arkansas ...

TDCJ to Run Out of Beds in 2025

by Matt Clarke

The Sunset Advisory Commission, an oversight body for Texas government agencies, published a 189-page report in September 2024 that found persistent critical staffing shortages are making Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) prisons unsafe for staff and prisoners alike. In fact, some guards and parole officers find ...

“Happy Mother’s Day”: $1,353,000 Settlement Approved for Migrant Parents Separated from Minor Kids at Border

by Matthew Thomas Clarke

On July 2, 2024, the federal court for the District of Arizona approved settlement of a lawsuit brought against the United States by former immigration detainees under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b)(1), 2671, et seq., for separating them from their minor children ...

DOJ Finds “Horrific and Inhumane” Conditions in Georgia Prisons

by Matt Clarke

"People are assaulted, stabbed, raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed,” lockups where “[i]nmates are maimed, tortured, relegated to an existence of fear, filth and not-so-benign neglect.”

So began a scathing 93-page report published by the Civil Rights Division (CRD) of ...