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Article • July 15, 2025 • from PLN July, 2025
First Circuit Revives Rhode Island Prisoner’s Excessive Force Claim Against Guard by David Reutter On September 23, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment to a Rhode Island Department of Corrections (DOC) guard who pepper-sprayed a restrained prisoner and then delayed …
Article • May 1, 2025 • from PLN May, 2025
Maryland Targets Highest-in-Nation Racial Incarceration Gap by Black Marylanders make up 30% of the state’s population but 71% of those in its prisons, the nation’s highest racial incarceration gap. To address that imbalance, state Attorney General Anthony G. Brown (D) helped launch the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative (MEJC) in October …
Article • April 1, 2025 • from PLN April, 2025
North Carolina Reimburses Prisoner $2,500 for Law Books Destroyed by Guards by Anthony Accurso by Anthony W. Accurso A prisoner, who said that he was inspired by what he read in PLN, fought for over three years to obtain compensation from North Carolina for property lost when prison officials failed …
Porn Produced by Georgia Prisoners by On July 16, 2024, the Human & Civil Rights Coalition (HCRC) of Georgia posted screenshots to its Facebook page from pornographic videos produced inside Wilcox State Prison and posted online by state prisoners. As the post noted, the videos ran up to 45 minutes, …
Mayhem, Murder and Staff Misconduct at Brooklyn BOP Lockup by The Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), a notorious federal jail in Brooklyn, New York, has made the news repeatedly thanks to some high-profile detainees held there to await trial. But federal prosecutors have also charged nine detainees for a series of …
Article • March 1, 2025 • from PLN March, 2025
The Grift That Keeps on Giving: $33 Million for State Prisons Generated by Seized Native Land by In 2024, land trusts in 10 states generated an estimated $33 million in revenue for their prison systems. The figure was estimated from reports by Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, …
Article • March 1, 2025 • from PLN March, 2025
Michigan Judge Sued for Jailing Teen Who Nodded Off While Watching in Court by In an amended complaint filed in federal court for the Eastern District of Michigan on December 30, 2024, the mother of a 15-year-old girl accused a state judge of violating the child’s civil rights when he …
Article • February 15, 2025 • from PLN February, 2025
Legal Gaffe Prolongs Case of Former St. Louis Detainee Held Eight Months After Dismissal of Charges by Matthew Clarke by Matthew Thomas Clarke On June 17, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit decided a civil rights complaint brought by former St. Louis jail detainee Michael Jones, …
Fourth Circuit Revives Claims Against Virginia Jailers by Detainee They Allegedly Manhandled While Handcuffed by Douglas Ankney by Douglas Ankney On July 8, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment to Defendant officials at Virginia’s Hampton Roads Regional Jail (HRRJ) …
Article • February 15, 2025 • from PLN February, 2025
U.S. Navy Exonerates Wrongly Convicted Black WWII Sailors by The United States Navy exonerated 256 former prisoners on July 17, 2024, all of them Black sailors convicted of refusing to return to work after a deadly 1944 explosion at the Port Chicago naval weapons station in San Francisco. On the …
Senate Votes to Increase Penalties for BOP Contraband Cellphone Smuggling by On September 28, 2024, the U.S. Senate passed legislation enhancing penalties for contraband cellphone possession in federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) lockups. Named after BOP Lt. Osvaldo Albarati, who was killed in a 2013 ambush arranged with contraband cellphones …
Alabama Guard, Prisoners Among 13 Sentenced in Phone Scam and Drug-Smuggling Ring by On July 1, 2024, the last of 13 people was sentenced in a drug-­smuggling scheme at Alabama’s Donaldson Correctional Facility that included five prisoners. The last of those, Otis “Big O” Bowers, 44, had been sentenced on …
CDCR Slammed for Reclassifying Staff Misconduct Allegations as Routine Grievances by Anthony Accurso by Anthony W. Accurso A report issued by California’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) on January 29, 2024, harshly criticized the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) for taking prisoner grievances that contained allegations of …
Article • October 15, 2024 • from PLN October, 2024
Three Former Rikers Island Guards Among Five Ex-Employees Charged in Massive Smuggling Scheme by Corruption charges against three former guards and two other former employees at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex were continued on May 9, 2024, a week after a massive stash of contraband was uncovered at …
Crucial Surveillance Video Missing in Nevada Prisoner’s Homicide Caused by Guards by In August 2024, a nine-month investigation by the office of Melanie Rouse, Coroner of Nevada’s Clark County, concluded that the death of state prisoner Patrick Odale, 39, was a homicide. Odale was killed when guards pepper-sprayed him and …
Pennsylvania Prisoner Smuggles Cellphones, Federal Prosecutor Breaches Plea Bargain by “Prosecutors must keep their promises,” declared the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on March 8, 2024, “[a]nd if they do not, they must make things right quickly, clearly, and fully.” But that’s not what happened in the …
Mississippi Prison Warden Suspended After Security Chief Caught Smuggling by Warden Terrance Watt was placed on administrative leave by the Mississippi Department of Corrections after his Chief of Security at Winston-­Choctaw Regional Correctional Facility was picked up on smuggling charges on July 11, 2024. Nikita Carter, 35, was arrested and …
Article • August 15, 2024 • from PLN August, 2024
Eleventh Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity to Georgia Jailers Who Housed White Detainee With Black Cellmate Held for Racially Motivated Attack by On January 5, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a lower court’s finding that defendant guards and a nurse at Georgia’s Muscogee County Jail …
Article • July 1, 2024 • from PLN July, 2024
Seventh Circuit Finds No Problem With Surveillance of Chicago Detainees on Toilets by David Reutter by David M. Reutter   On December 18, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the grant of summary judgment to Defendant officials of Cook County in a civil rights action …
Article • June 1, 2024 • from PLN June, 2024
Texas Detainee Raped in Jail Sues Macy’s for False Facial-ID Match That Led to Arrest by A lawsuit filed on January 18, 2024, accuses retail giant Macy’s of employing faulty facial recognition technology that falsely identified a Texas man as an armed robbery suspect, landing him in a Houston jail …
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