by Matt Clarke
After a trio of federal court rulings in 2021 regarding the labor of immigrant detainees, the first one remained the clearest victory so far for plaintiffs. That was a decision on January 20, 2021, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, holding that detainee ...
by Matt Clarke
As previously reported by PLN, federal appellate courts in the U.S. have taken a dim view of challenges to conditions of confinement that place prisoners at elevated risk from COVID-19.
Early in the pandemic, in May 2020, the Eleventh Circuit stayed an injunction issued by a federal ...
by Matt Clarke
After a federal appeals court vacated a district court’s judgment in favor of Connecticut prison officials, they settled for $100,000 with a prisoner forced to exercise in full restraints for six months a decade ago.
On January 27, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second ...
by Matt Clarke
Recently, during an industrial conference, executives from Waste Management Services (which recorded $15.22 billion in 2020 revenues), discussed using immigrants as truck drivers, and other industry executives suggested using prison or work-release programs to fill openings in the sanitation, waste, and recycling industry.
But Chuck Stiles, director ...
by Matt Clarke
A trio of pro se prisoner appeals denied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on September 22, 2021, left intact an agreement approved earlier in the year by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, under which the Texas Department ...
by Matt Clarke
On August 5, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit refused to reverse a district court and order an injunction against the Mississippi Department of Corrections (DOC) because, during the pendency of the lawsuit, DOC had improved conditions at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility ...
by Matt Clarke and Dale Chappell
On August 9, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed the dismissal of a prisoner’s lawsuit alleging his due-process and access-to-courts rights were violated when the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) failed to notify him it had censored a letter ...
“Parole is the legal equivalent of imprisonment”
by Matt Clarke
On August 3, 2021, the Supreme Court of New Jersey held that the time a prisoner spent in prison in excess of that allowed by his sentence must be used to reduce his period of parole supervision.
Paulino Njango agreed ...
by Matt Clarke
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that Arkansas jailers were entitled to qualified immunity in a lawsuit brought by prisoners in 2017 who alleged their shower area was covered in black mold and they were never given any cleaning supplies. The court also ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 26, 2021, the Fifth Circuit court of appeals overturned a permanent injunction that required a Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) prison to observe certain precautions against the spread of COVID-19.
Laddie Valentine and Richard King are state prisoners incarcerated at a TDCJ geriatric prison, ...
