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Articles by Matthew Clarke

JP Morgan Chase Bank Used Secretive Bonds to Finance Kansas Prison Construction

by Matt Clarke

Recently discovered evidence in a Thomson Reuters database revealed that, in June 2018, JP Morgan Chase Bank (JPMC) underwrote a $159.5 million bond to finance private prison operator CoreCivic’s construction of a 2,432-bed facility in Kansas. JPMC was already the largest debt holder for private prison ...

Fifth Circuit Holds Magistrate Judge Has No Authority to Deem Motion for Reconsideration Withdrawn

by Matt Clarke

On August 21, 2018, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a federal magistrate judge had no authority to sua sponte deem a motion for reconsideration withdrawn in a pro se civil rights complaint. 

Former Texas state prisoner Eric Lawson filed suit pursuant to 42 ...

Eighth Circuit Finds Verified Complaint Defeats Summary Judgment Motion in Failure-to-Protect Case

by Matt Clarke

On August 20, 2018, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal filed by officials at the Northeast Arkansas Community Corrections Center (NEACCC) in a lawsuit alleging they had failed to protect a prisoner from being physically and sexually harassed, threatened and assaulted, and instead punished ...

U.S. Marshals Report: Ohio County Jail “One of the Worst in the Country”

by Matt Clarke 

One week after the release of a report by the U.S. Marshals Service on November 21, 2018, which described Ohio’s Cuyahoga County jail system as “one of the worst in the country,” jail administrator Ken Mills resigned. Citing the report’s findings, seven prisoners at the facility ...

Texas Accounts for Over Ten Percent of Nation’s Jail Deaths

by Matt Clarke

There are over 1,000 prisoner deaths each year in U.S. jails, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and one of every ten occurs in Texas. Over the nine-month period between October 1, 2017 and July 1, 2018, some 80 prisoners died in Texas jails – ...

Ninth Circuit Grants Habeas Relief for Ineffective Assistance of Resentencing Counsel

by Matt Clarke

On July 11, 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted habeas relief to an Arizona death row prisoner based on ineffective assistance of counsel at resentencing. 

Michael Ray White was manipulated by a woman with whom he was having an affair into shooting ...

Baby Dies Days After Prisoner Gives Birth in Isolation Cell at Texas Jail

by Matt Clarke

On May 17, 2018, baby Cashh arrived in the world, slipping out of his mother onto the floor of an isolation cell at the Ellis County Jail in Texas. Cashh survived only nine days following his traumatic and premature birth. [See: PLN, Oct. 2018, p.51]. ...

$1 Million Settlement in Lawsuit Over Texas Jail Prisoner’s Death

by Matt Clarke

A federal civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of a Texas prisoner who died after jailers ignored his rapidly deteriorating mental and physical condition settled for $1 million. 

When Fernando Longoria, 29, reported to the Carrizales-Rucker Cameron County Detention Center in Texas in January 2015 ...

Oklahoma is Number One ... in Incarceration Rates

by Matt Clarke

According to a June 2018 report by the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), Oklahoma’s incarceration rate has surpassed not only that of every other state in the U.S., but also of almost every other nation. To calculate the rates, PPI totaled the number of prisoners in both state ...

Hawaii Prison Guards’ Union Fights Policy of Denying Promotions

by Matt Clarke 

In Hawaii, the United Public Workers union represents around 13,000 state and county employees, including approximately 1,200 prison guards. The union has been engaged in a seven-year battle against the Department of Public Safety’s policy of denying promotions to guards who were suspended for ...