by Matt Clarke
The Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) recently published “Unlocking Safe Water in Texas Prisons,” a report on the lack of transparency exhibited by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) when it pumps and treats its own drinking water and apparent provision of unsafe drinking …
by Matt Clarke
On January 13, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the denial of a federal prisoner’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus claiming he was unlawfully denied time credits he was entitled to pursuant to the First Step Act …
by Matt Clarke
On January 6, 2026, a Missouri circuit court struck the defenses of the Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) as a sanction in a lawsuit over the suicide of a DOC prisoner. The reason for the sanction was the failure of the Assistant Attorney General (AAG) …
by Matt Clarke
In 1995, the Texas Legislature created the state jail system as a place to send prisoners convicted of minor crimes in order to relieve the overcrowding in the Texas prison system. Because the majority of people sent to state jails had been convicted of drug …
by Matt Clarke
On October 23, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) denied certiorari in a federal civil rights action challenging Alabama’s use of nitrogen hypoxia for executions. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a vivid and strongly worded dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji …
by Matt Clarke
On April 12, 2025, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia denied the government’s motion to dismiss with respect to due process and First Amendment claims made by a federal prison reform advocate whose access to communicate via electronic messaging with prisoners …
by Matt Clarke
On December 1, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that jailers could not be held liable for the death of a Georgia pretrial detainee caused by lack of medical care. The Court’s rationale was that the jailers followed the …
by Matt Clarke
On December 17, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reinstated a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by the guardian of a man who was severely injured when two prisoners with lengthy histories of assaulting other prisoners and jail staff severely …
by Matt Clarke
On November 20, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that an Alabama law making sheriffs responsible for jail prisoners’ health care did not excuse a county from liability for having a policy resulting in inadequate prisoner health care. The …
by Matt Clarke
On November 26, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed the summary dismissal of a failure-to-train claim in a federal civil rights lawsuit over the suicide of an in-transit federal prisoner being held overnight in an Oklahoma jail.
In …
