Despite Oklahoma having a wrongful-conviction compensation statute on the books since 2003, few exonerees in that state have received payment.
One example of the battles exonerees face is the case of Greg Wilhoit, who was sentenced to death for the 1985 murder of his wife. Her body was discovered in ...
High-profile crimes allegedly committed by two former Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC) prisoners after they were released early from prison has generated controversy over how the DOC calculates release dates.
Desmond La'don Campbell was convicted of attempted kidnapping and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Between 2007 and 2012, he ...
A Colorado state prisoner filed a federal civil rights action in September 2014, alleging denial of medical care for a dental infection that nearly killed him and left him with partial paralysis of his tongue and a resulting severe speech impediment.
According to court documents, Christopher Tantlinger, 32, was a ...
The death of 35-year-old Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC) prisoner Christopher Lopez at the San Carols Correctional Facility on March 17, 2013, would have been rejected if submitted as a plot for a novel. It is too unbelievable! Guards found him nearly unconscious on the floor of his cell and, ...
The Texas Office of Violent Sex Offender Management (OVSOM), which supervises civilly committed Texas sex offenders, has been the subject of multiple controversies in recent months. These included secretly housing civilly committed sex offenders (CCSOs) in residential neighborhoods in Austin and Houston, contract mismanagement, missing records, administrative errors and officials ...
The San Luis Regional Detention and Support Center opened with a capacity of 548 beds in 2007. Initially, it housed male and female immigration detainees. In 2009, Emerald Correctional Management took over operation of the center, located in San Luis, Arizona. Emerald initiated a 368-bed expansion of the center which ...
In a March 25, 2015, opinion, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that cell phone service providers and owners of cell towers in the area around a South Carolina prison were not liable for the attempted murder of a prison guard ordered by a prisoner using a smuggled cell ...
On March 9, 2015, the rape and kidnapping charges against Angel Gonzalez that had held him in prison for nearly 20 years were dismissed. He had been exonerated by DNA evidence. However, he was not immediately released because he had been convicted of damaging a sink while in prison and ...
After decades of driving prison expansion by espousing tough-on-crime sentencing laws, advocating for policies to lock up criminals and throw away the key, and exploiting the public’s fear of crime, conservative lawmakers have finally discovered criminal justice reform. Like European explorers being met on the beach by throngs of Native ...
After a guard at a South Carolina jail repeatedly struck a prisoner who was being strapped into a restraint chair, York County Sheriff Bruce Bryant took decisive action. He fired the jailer who told a television station and state investigators about a video recording of the incident. Nothing was done ...
