by Matt Clarke
On May 14, 2018, Senior U.S. District Court Judge Patricia A. Gaughan ruled the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) could not enforce a grooming policy that required a Rastafarian prisoner to cut his dreadlocks.
The district court declared the grooming policy, as …
by Matt Clarke
On May 15, 2018, the City and County of Denver, Colorado agreed to pay $100,000 to an unidentified deputy sheriff who was fired from his position at the Denver County jail after the Sheriff’s Department refused to accommodate his Type 1 diabetes, causing him to …
In February 2018, the Vermont Department of Corrections (VDC) gave six months’ notice to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) that it was canceling a contract under which around 260 Vermont prisoners were incarcerated in the DOC.
The cancellation follows the deaths of three Vermont prisoners who were …
by Matthew Clarke
Of the 26,000 guards who work in Texas’ 104 state prisons, 28 percent left their jobs in 2017 – an increase from the prior year’s 22.8 percent turnover rate and “the highest in recent memory,” according to Bryan Collier, executive director of the Texas Department …
by Matt Clarke
In April 2018, Saunders County, Nebraska and Advanced Correctional Healthcare, Inc. (ACH) agreed to pay $10,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a former jail prisoner who was denied medication for a brain tumor.
When John Gillock, 43, was arrested on a misdemeanor theft …
by Matt Clarke
On April 30, 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held it was error to apply a subjective standard to a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim alleging inadequate medical care that resulted in the death of a pretrial detainee.
Matthew Shawn Gordon was arrested …
by Matthew Clarke
On March 7, 2018, a Colorado federal jury awarded $6 million to a prisoner in a lawsuit over his mistreatment by a guard while he was experiencing an epileptic seizure.
Jayson M. Oslund, a Colorado state prisoner, had a history of epilepsy and was …
by Matthew Clarke
In February 2018, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a former Louisiana jail lieutenant’s conviction for depriving a prisoner of his civil rights under color of state law in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242. Specifically, the ex-jailer had pleaded guilty to failing to …
by Matthew Clarke
A lawsuit filed in federal district court alleges guards at the jail in Milam County, Texas beat a compliant prisoner without any reason, causing him to become paralyzed, then “released” him while he was in the hospital so the jail wouldn’t have to pay his …
by Matthew Clarke
On November 11, 2017, notice of a $200,000 settlement was filed in a federal lawsuit over the death of a diabetic Texarkana jail prisoner who died after a nurse ignored her repeated requests for a blood sugar test. Soon thereafter the mother of the prisoner …
