In October 2015, Phillip Henry Freeman disappeared from the Liberty County Jail near Houston, Texas. He was recaptured living in a wooded area in Arkansas in late January 2016. His escape was the latest in a slew of problems at the 281-bed facility, which is operated by New Jersey-based …
On December 29, 2015, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging federal prison officials had failed to properly search prisoners who were placed in a recreation cage where they assaulted and repeatedly stabbed another prisoner.
Federal prisoner Joshua Rich was incarcerated in …
On December 23, 2015, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal of a Wisconsin probationer with gender dysphoria who was denied a preliminary injunction to allow her to move from a men’s homeless shelter to her mother’s house and to dress as a woman in public. In …
On December 31, 2015, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held that six wrongfully convicted former prisoners could sue Gage County, Nebraska for conspiring to manufacture false evidence; further, law enforcement officials involved in the investigation that led to the wrongful convictions were not entitled to qualified immunity. [See: …
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law released a report in May 2015 titled, “Charging Inmates Perpetuates Mass Incarceration.”
Mass incarceration refers to the fact that the United States, which has around 5% of the world’s population, holds almost 25% of the world’s …
In November 2015, Riverside County, California agreed to settle a federal class-action civil rights suit brought by current and former county jail prisoners who alleged violations of their constitutional right to adequate medical and mental health care. [See: PLN, Feb. 2016, p.32].
The settlement included comprehensive reform …
In an opinion handed down on December 31, 2015, the Supreme Court of Kansas modified the requirement that a criminal defendant be exonerated prior to suing the attorney who represented him (the “exoneration rule”). Under the modification, reversal of a conviction or other post-conviction relief may count as a …
In mid-2014, Sutter County, California settled lawsuits brought by the families of two county jail prisoners who died. The family of Rodney Bock received $800,000 while the family of Nathan Prasad received $825,000. The jail also initiated some health care reforms.
Bock, 56, suffered from mental illness and …
On October 14, 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin held she would retain jurisdiction over a class-action civil rights lawsuit in order to determine the damages to be awarded former prisoners for the imposition or continuation of post-release supervision (PRS) by parole and prison officials after that practice …
Elberto Esquiel Bravo, 55, the former warden at the East Hidalgo County Detention Center, was arrested in January 2015 and charged with acting as an accessory after the fact in a conspiracy to bribe Hidalgo County Justice of the Peace Jose Ismael “Melo” Ochoa to reduce the bond of …
