Despite years of controversy that included sitting vacant for months after it was built and staff members being arrested for smuggling contraband and having sexual relationships with prisoners, the Jack Harwell Detention Center in Waco, Texas has rebounded. It now houses more prisoners, obtained a lower interest rate on the ...
The Sixth Circuit allowed a prisoner to revive the appeal of her federal habeas corpus action in the interests of justice after she won a civil rights lawsuit against prison guards who prevented her from filing a timely notice of appeal a decade earlier.
Hattie Tanner, a Michigan state prisoner ...
A federal jury awarded a former Jefferson County Detention Center prisoner more than $11 million against the sheriff and the jail’s privately-contracted medical provider, Correctional Healthcare Companies (CHC) – now Correct Care Solutions – after he was denied medical treatment for at least 16 hours despite obvious signs of a ...
On October 24, 2014, a Montana state jury found Missoula County liable in the wrongful death of a jail prisoner and assessed an award of $565,500 against the county. The county agreed not to appeal and to pay within two weeks. A private health care provider settled confidentially prior to ...
In December 2014, Sussex County, New Jersey settled a lawsuit brought by a former jail prisoner who alleged he was brutally beaten, sprayed with chemicals and strapped into a restraint chair for 19 hours after he tried to talk to a prisoner who was being strapped into a restraint chair. ...
On May 21, 2014, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and private plaintiffs announced a settlement agreement with Ohio requiring the Ohio Department of Youth Services (DYS) to dramatically reduce and eventually eliminate the use of seclusion. DYS policy 305.05.04 defines seclusion as the involuntary confinement of a youth ...
On August 21, 2014, Tarrant County, Texas settled for $350,000 a lawsuit brought under the Civil Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by the sister and administrator of the estate of deceased Tarrant County Jail prisoner Jonathan William Holden.
The lawsuit alleged that Holden, 30, was booked into ...
On October 2, 2014, an Arizona federal jury awarded a state prisoner $145,000 in a civil rights lawsuit over a guard’s excessive use of force.
Ron Zachary Pettit, 36, was a prisoner at the Arizona State Prison Complex - Eyman, Special Management Unit, when he was injured by guard Torrey ...
On January 12, 2015, New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer announced the $17 million settlement of wrongful conviction claims brought by three half-brothers who were convicted of murder and spent a combined total of 60 years in prison.
The homicide detective in all three cases was Louis Scarcella, now ...
Former employees of Houston-based Turning Point, Inc., a private, for-profit company which contracted with Texas to provide substance abuse treatment in its state jail system, are revealing how supervisors pressured them to falsify Addiction Severity Index (ADI) scores to downplay mental illness issues and exaggerate alcohol and substance abuse.
Melissa ...
