by Casey Bastian
In August 2022, during their federal civil rights trial for running down and fatally shooting an unarmed jogger, Ahmaud Arbury, in Brunswick in February 2020, attorneys for father and son defendants Greg and Travis McMichael offered their guilty pleas on one condition: That the federal judge overseeing ...
by Paul Wright
This month’s cover story reports on developments in the Georgia prison system, which continues from bad to worse in terms of its rising body count of dead prisoners. This fits into the pattern of massive, systemic neglect, brutality and violence that currently seems to be especially concentrated ...
by Kevin W. Bliss
The Montana Department of Corrections (DOC) and Montana State Prison (MSP) entered into an agreement with Disability Rights Montana, Inc. (DRM) on March 10, 2022, settling a lawsuit DRM filed on behalf of state prisoners with serious mental illnesses (SMI) with a major overhaul to the ...
by David Reutter and Keith Sanders
On July 29, 2022, the federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi took the dramatic step of placing Hinds County’s Raymond Detention Center (RDC) under federal receivership.
A series of crises dates back to a 2012 prisoner riot at the 28-year-old, 594-bed jail ...
by David M. Reutter
On March 24, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit joined a short list of federal appellate courts so far to say that additional protections provided to pre-trial detainees by the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in cases alleging excessive force also extend to ...
by Ben Tschirhart
Some 20 newly unionized workers and their supporters manned a picket line at CoreCivic’s Central Arizona Florence Correctional Complex (CAFCC) on August 12, 2022, after pay negotiations broke down over a company offer the union representative called “insulting.”
Despite alleged attempts by CoreCivic to thwart their vote, ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 11, 2022, the federal court for the Northern District of Illinois enjoined the state Department of Corrections (DOC) from keeping 25 sex offenders imprisoned who were eligible for mandatory supervision release (MSR) but whose new housing violated a state law that bars more than one ...
by Victoria Law
This article was originally published at TruthOut.com on August 5, 2022. It is reprinted here with permission.
On July 5, Rita Deanda tested positive for COVID while incarcerated at the California Institution for Women. She was immediately ordered to pack her belongings and moved to a quarantine ...
by Beryl Lipton And Cooper Quintin
This article was first published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on September 10, 2021. It is reprinted here with permission.
Prison telecommunication companies have historically been in a voice-based business with one way to profit: charging exorbitant rates for phone calls.
The business ...
by Ed Lyon
In January 2022, when Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) announced the closing of the state prison complex in Florence, he pointed to the facility’s age—it was built in 1904—and said spending an estimated $150 million on needed repairs “just doesn’t make sense.”
What does make sense? Apparently ...
by David M. Reutter
In a lawsuit alleging officials at Oklahoma’s Carter County Jail (CCJ) failed to provide any medical attention in the days leading up to a pretrial detainee’s death, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit overruled a lower court’s grant of qualified immunity (QI) to ...
by David M. Reutter
On September 10, 2021, a California court set aside an award by the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) of a contract to Global Tel Link Corporation (GTL) for telecommunications services for California prisoners.
The ruling disrupted GTL’s rollout of new tablets to state prisoners ...
by Keith Sanders
In January 2022, the Ohio Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began requiring the state’s 5,000 prison guards to don body-worn cameras. Supplied by Axon, the “body cams,” which complement over 1,000 security cameras already installed in Ohio’s 28 state prisons, will cost almost $7 million the first ...
by Michael D. Cohen MD
The World Health Organization has designated monkeypox a global health emergency because it has suddenly and unexpectedly spread around the world via new modes of transmission that are not understood. It is an emergency because it is still spreading. But the numbers of people infected ...
by Mark Wilson
In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Clarence Thomas on March 4, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death sentence of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, reversing a lower appellate court to conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding a juror-screening ...
by David M. Reutter
On October 7, 2021, the Board of Commissioners of Michigan’s Macomb County agreed to pay $1 million to settle claims by survivors of a detainee who hanged himself at the county jail in 2017. The jail’s privately contracted medical provider, Correct Care Solutions (CCS), now known ...
by Kevin W. Bliss
Despite a watchdog report finding state prisons so short-staffed that some guard supervisors sought demotions to take advantage of ballooning hourly overtime pay, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (DCS) will not see any help from lawmakers this session, after an ambitious prison overhaul bill died ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 9, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the adequacy of pandemic precautions taken by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), holding that there was no exception for a pandemic emergency to the requirement ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) held that a Texas death row prisoner was likely to prevail on his claims under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc et seq., that the state unduly burdened ...
by Kevin W. Bliss
On March 28, 2022, the California Court of Appeals for the Third Appellate District ruled that a new “paper review” process for parole consideration did not violate the equal protection or due process rights of state prisoners affected by it.
After a federal district court ordered ...
by Jacob Barrett
On February 2, 2022, the Court of Appeals of the State of Oregon held that a lower court erred in denying a state prisoner’s petition for change of legal name or sex just because she was incarcerated.
The prisoner, Andrew “April” Jondle, is a transgender woman currently ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 1, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the Virginia Department of Corrections (DOC) did not violate the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc, et seq., by requiring a Muslim prisoner to purchase prayer ...
by Kevin W. Bliss
Starting from a four-prison pilot launched on January 18, 2022, the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) has now banned state prisoners at all 128 of its facilities from receiving any tangible routine mail. Instead they are delivered electronic copies of their mail on tablets.
DOC has ...
by David M. Reutter
On June 29, 2021, a lawsuit against California’s San Joaquin County was dismissed by a former detainee at the county jail, after he agreed to accept $7,500 to settle his claim that guards yanked him off the toilet in his cell and beat him without provocation. ...
by Keith Sanders
Mass incarceration disenfranchises millions in America, especially the economically disadvantaged who make up the majority of those incarcerated. Though the rationale for barring felons from voting is multifaceted, one argument is that a bloc of voting felons would somehow skew election outcomes. However, a study published in ...
by David M. Reutter
On March 29, 2022, the First Circuit Court of Hawaii awarded $1.375 million to the estate of Joseph O’Malley, who committed suicide while incarcerated at the Halawa Correctional Facility (HCF) in July 2017.
O’Malley, 28, was diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder upon incarceration at HCF on ...
by Casey J. Bastian
On March 1, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a federal prisoner’s lawsuit, finding that even though a Bureau of Prisons (BOP) staffer put him at risk of assault, damages were not warranted because the “risk never materialized.” ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 2, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit revived a Wisconsin prisoner’s retaliation claim against a state prison guard, saying that the district court erred when it dismissed the poorly pleaded pro se civil rights complaint with prejudice without first granting an ...
by David M. Reutter
On February 4, 2022, the Supreme Court of Florida held that the state’s First District Court of Appeal erred in not accepting a prisoner’s notice of appeal for lack of a prison date stamp since prison mail logs indicated the notice was timely turned over to ...
by Ashleigh N. Dye
On July 1, 2022, a new Indiana law took effect that caps the price charged for phone calls in state prisons and jails. With the change, those held by the state Department of Corrections (DOC) now pay 12 cents per minute for a call. However, since ...
by Jacob Barrett
On August 2, 2022, the federal Department of Justice introduced its pick to helm the nation’s Bureau of Prison (BOP): Collette Peters, the director of Oregon’s Department of Corrections (DOC) since 2012. She fills a slot vacated by retiring BOP Director Michael Carvajal, a career agency employee—he ...
by Jayson Hawkins
A settlement was finalized on January 19, 2022, in a lawsuit challenging a New York law barring those on the state sex offender registry from accessing the internet. The settlement allows some registered sex offenders now to access and use the internet, unless they previously used it ...
by Ashleigh N. Dye
A recent study published in December 2021 suggests that even as U.S. jail population was falling between 2014 and 2019, the length of stay for each incarceration was on the rise.
The study, Understanding Trends in Jail Populations, 2014-2019: A Multi-Site Analysis, was conducted by ...
by David M. Reutter
The Supreme Court of Rhode Island held on March 2, 2022, that the state’s civil death statute is “unconstitutional and in clear contravention of the provisions” of the state constitution.
The Court’s ruling was issued in the consolidated appeals of state prisoners Cody-Allen Zab and Jose ...
by Matt Clarke
Forced into a November 2022 runoff by a close primary vote, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva came out swinging at the Civilian Oversight Commission (COC) the very next month, defying a subpoena to testify on July 25, 2022, about reports that deputy “gangs” persist in the ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Engulfed in a campaign finance probe that has snagged ten others on corruption and bribery charges in an alleged “pay to play” scheme, the Sheriff of California’s Santa Clara County, Laurie Smith, announced in March 2022 that she would not seek another term to the office she ...
by Casey J. Bastian
On March 21, 2021, an agreement was reached between Wisconsin’s Portage County and a class of plaintiffs consisting of current and former detainees at the county jail to settle claims that their privileged communication with their attorneys was unlawfully intercepted. Under the settlement, Defendants and their ...
by Jayson Hawkins
Like many other California parolees, Anthony David Urbano wanted to use the skills learned in prison to make a living on the outside. Unfortunately, his skill was serving as a “jailhouse lawyer,” helping other prisoners with their legal work, and his right to use it remained behind ...
by David M. Reutter
California’s San Luis Obispo County entered into a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on June 23, 2021, resolving alleged violations at the county jailof the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. ch. 126, § 12101 et seq.
DOJ initiated an investigation ...
by Matt Clarke
On January 6, 2022, the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project (PILP) announced a settlement had been reached in a lawsuit filed for a trio of its clients, who were thrown in solitary confinement while incarcerated at the Lebanon County Correctional Facility (LCCF) after they refused to cut off ...
Loaded on
Sept. 1, 2022
published in Prison Legal News
September, 2022, page 64
Alabama: A federal prisoner in Birmingham was gunned down outside a privately-operated reentry facility on July 16, 2022. The Associated Press reported that the prisoner, Larry Taylor, 47, had just been released from the facility, which is operated under contract from the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) by Keeton ...
