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Articles by Matthew Clarke

Illinois Wrongful Conviction Suit Settled for $5 Million

In June 2012, the Village of Woodridge, Illinois, and several of its police officers settled a case brought by a man who bad been wrongfully convicted of rape due to the suppression and fabrication of evidence twenty years earlier. The settlement amount was $5,000,000.

In 1987, Marcus Lyons was a ...

Settlement and $325,000 Attorney Fee Award in Suit over Jail Conditions at Passaic County Jail

On February 23, 2012, the American Civil liberties Union (ACLU) and Seton Ha].] University School of Law's Center for Social Justice (CSJ) announced the preliminary settlement of a federal class-action civil-rights lawsuit over conditions of confinement at the Passaic County Jail in New Jersey. Under the terms of the settlement, ...

Court's Expert Says Medical Care at Idaho Prison is Unconstitutional

On March 19, 2012, a federal court in Idaho unsealed a report by court-appointed special master and expert on prison health care, Dr. Marc Stern which the state had attempted to suppress. In the February 2, 2012, report, Stern described much of the medical care provided prisoners at the Idaho ...

Settlement Prohibits Lengthy Segregation of Mentally-Ill Massachusetts Prisoners, Awards $1,250,000 in Attorney Fees

On April 12, 2012, a Massachusetts federal court entered an order approving a private settlement agreement between the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC) and the Boston-based Disability Law Center (DLC) which prohibits lengthy segregation of DOC prisoners with serious mental illness (SMI) and provides for an overhaul in how the ...

Wisconsin Civil Commitments a Major Expense

When the Wisconsin Legislature first passed the Sexually Violent Persons Law allowing for civil commitment of certain sex offenders who had served all of their prison sentences, the additional expense was expected to be minimal. Today's reality proves that such a prediction was overly optimistic. Currently, there are over 360 ...

Massachusetts Crime Lab Chemist Arrested for Falsifying Results

Annie Dookhan, 34, was arrested on September 28, 2012, and charged with two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of falsifying her academic record during her nine-year career as a state crime lab chemist. Each obstruction charge carry up to ten years in prison while the false credentials ...

Bureau of Prisons Physician Charged With Sexually Assaulting Prisoners

On September 20, 2012, Dr. Lewis Jackson, 30, who worked as a physician for the federal Bureau of Prisons, was arraigned and released on bond after being indicted three weeks earlier on three counts of sexually abusing a ward and lying to federal agents. Dr. Jackson worked in the medical ...

Settlement in Suit Challenging Conditions in Illinois Juvenile Prisons

On September 12, 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) helped youth incarcerated in secure Illinois Youth Centers operated by the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (IDJJ) file a class-action federal lawsuit alleging that conditions in the IDJJ violated the youths' Fourteenth Amendment due process rights and their rights under ...

Washington State Prisons Chief Resigns as Video of Affair with Subordinate Emerges

Eldon Vail, Corrections Secretary in Washington State, turned in a letter of resignation on July 1, 2011, after it was made public that he had been having an affair with a subordinate.

Shortly before Vail resigned, several Seattle-area television stations received copies of a video purporting to show Vail and ...

Missouri Jail Head Receives Ten-Year Federal Sentence for Assaulting Prisoners

On July 13, 2011, a Missouri federal judge sentenced a former chief jailer to ten years in prison for violating the civil rights of prisoners and lying to the FBI. The jailer's daughter, a deputy sheriff, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges and was sentenced to probation.

Vernon Wilson, ...