by Matt Clarke
When detainee Reynaldo Ramos, 55, was found unresponsive in his Robert Pressley Detention Center cell in California’s Riverside County on April 16, 2024, efforts to resuscitate him failed, and he was pronounced dead. He had been arrested on drug trafficking charges 10 days earlier. The County Sheriff’s ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 29, 2024, the federal court for the Central District of California approved a settlement under which Riverside County paid $7.5 million to the survivors of a county jail detainee who died in custody. The agreement resolved a lawsuit they filed blaming the death of Christopher ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
"Does somebody have any common sense?”
That was the question U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken had for Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) officials when they appeared before her on December 12, 2023, to respond to a show-cause motion by transgender state prisoner Zera Lola Zombie, who ...
by Matt Clarke
Former Kentucky Department of Corrections (DOC) parole officer Ronald R. Tyler, 57, was sentenced to three years in federal prison on March 21, 2024, for sexually assaulting three probationers. Victims Stephanie Logsdon Smith, Cammie Musinski and Bridgett Dennis—later known as Bridgett Parson—filed suit against Tyler. DOC fired ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
In November 2023, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) published an audit of the $2.75 million contract awarded to the American Correctional Association (ACA) by DOJ’s Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to accredit and reaccredit its lockups. The ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 28, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit declined to let a federal prisoner sue officials with the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) who allegedly put him in harm’s way at an Illinois lockup. The decision was predictable, given the adamant ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 22, 2023, the Supreme Court of Ohio reiterated that a prisoner’s “kite”—his communication with staff—is a public record subject to disclosure upon request. Moreover, the Court added, a prisoner may bring a petition for a writ of mandamus to enforce his right to a ...
by Matt Clarke
On November 7, 2023, a Vermont court ruled in favor of the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News, in its request for records from Centurion of Vermont related to its contract to provide medical, dental and mental health care ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
On December 20, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that an Illinois prisoner’s challenge to civil commitment as a sexually violent person after release cannot be raised under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, unless the underlying civil commitment is first terminated ...
by Matthew T. Clarke
According to a federal civil rights action filed by Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project attorneys Matthew A. Feldman and Evangeline Wright on November 15, 2023, a Black Jamaican migrant held for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Pike County Correctional Facility (PCCF) was subjected ...
