Submission of Form Doesn't Violate Religious Beliefs by At 1136: "Plaintiff alleges that because she had sworn to God that she would not complete another Form 3971, defendant subjected her to religious discrimination when it required her to submit a properly completed Form 3971 after her absence on August 11, …
Defendant Denial Reinforces Need for Injunction by Actions for statutory injunctions need not meet the traditional equity requirements for injunctive relief. Once a violation is shown, the moving party need show only that there is some reasonable likelihood of future violations. Past misconduct is highly suggestive of the likelihood of …
Kansas Court Access Claim Dismissed for Lack of Injury by The plaintiff alleged various deprivations of court access and sought a temporary restraining order to prevent his transfer. The latter request (and all his other injunctive claims) were mooted when he was transferred. The court doesn't address whether he could …
Tenth Circuit Affirms Summary Dismissal of In-Cell Book Limit by The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has upheld a Kansas federal district court's summary dismissal of a state prisoner's challenge to a Kansas Department of Corrections (DOC) policy limiting the number of books a prisoner may possess in …
Rectal Probe Searches Require Reasonable Suspicion by The court of appeals for the Tenth circuit held that a district court erred when it dismissed as frivolous a Kansas prisoner's lawsuit that he was subjected to a digital rectal probe. The appeals court reversed, holding that prison officials must have reasonable, …
Retaliation Suit Wrongly Dismissed by The court of appeals for the Tenth circuit held that a district court in Kansas wrongly dismissed a federal prisoners retaliation suit. The court applied the Turner v. Safley reasonableness test to a retaliation claim. Plaintiff claimed he was placed in segregation with no due …
Divided Tenth Circuit Panel Reverses Jail Prisoner's Dismissed Claims by In a decision producing three separate opinions, a panel of the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has partly reversed a Kansas Federal District Court decision dismissing a former prisoner's claims against the Wyandotte County [Kansas] Jail. Wesley I. Purkey …
Dismissed Medical Claims Reversed by Federal Tenth Circuit by The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a Kansas Federal District Court's dismissal of a state prisoner's 42 U.S.C. §1983 complaint. Donald Halpin is a Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) prisoner transferred from the Florida Department of Corrections under the …
Tenth Circuit Reverses Dismissal on Prison Visitation Case by The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the decision of a Kansas Federal district court dismissing the complaint of a prisoner and his wife over loss of visiting privileges. Kevin and Marsha Gray are married. Mr. Gray is African-American …
Kansas Open Records Act Requires DOC to Disclose Parolee Info To Public by The Kansas Supreme Court held that the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) requires that state's Department of Corrections (KDOC) to provide certain parolee supervision information to requestors. In doing so, that court narrowly construed KORA's "supervision history" …
Sending State Must Provide Transferred Prisoner Legal Assistance by The First Circuit Court of Appeals held that prisoners transferred from the State of Maine to a Leavenworth, Kansas prison are entitled to receive legal assistance from Maine. After being transferred from Maine State Prison to a federal prison in Leavenworth …
Tenth Circuit: Kansas Prisoner's Exercise, Newspaper Ban Claims Valid by In this case filed by a Kansas prisoner, the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held in an unpublished opinion that inadequate, outside exercise time and a total ban on newspapers possibly violated the prisoner's constitutional rights. Mitchell Thomas was …
Leavenworth Prison Officials Granted Qualified Immunity on Court Access Case by Reversing the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals held that officials at the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth (USP-Leavenworth) and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) were entitled to qualified …
Required DNA Submission Under Patriot Act Constitutional by The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas held that the relevant portions of the Patriot Act, which require persons convicted of various felonies to submit a DNA sample for inclusion in the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database, were …
Summary Judgment to Jail Officials Reversed by The U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a Kansas federal district court's grant of summary judgment to county jail officials on a complaint by a pretrial detainee alleging deliberate indifference to a serious medical need by jailers. John Sandifer, a …
Kansas Federal Court Upholds In-Cell Book Restriction, But Continues Injunction by by Matthew T. Clarke A Kansas federal court has upheld the Kansas Department of Corrections policy limiting the number of books a prisoner may possess in his cell, but continued to enforce an injunction against prison officials destroying a …
Kansas Strip-Search Suit Subject to Three-Year Statute of Limitation by Shawn McCormick was arrested in Lawrence Kansas where police subjected him to a strip search and a body cavity search. More than two years later, but less than three, he filed suit in state court under KSA § 22-2523, claiming …
Kansas Parolee-Supervision-Fee Upheld by Jospeph Jacklovich, a Kansas state parolee, challenged a $25 per month parolee-supervision-fee, implemented after his crimes were committed, in state court. His claim was that the fee increased the punishment for his crimes retrospectively, thus violated the ban on ex post facto laws. The trial court …
Kansas Prisoner Not Allowed to Attend Disciplinary Hearing States Habeas Claim by Johnny Hoque , a Kansas state prisoner, was infracted for inciting a riot. Seven days before his hearing, he tore up the summons and refused to cooperate with the proceedings. He later indicated that he would cooperate, but …
No Liberty Interest in Security Classification by The plaintiff complained of his security classification and the process for assigning it, but classification isn't atypical and significant and there is therefore no liberty interest under Sandin. The possible subsequent consequences of his classification (e.g., that he might be treated as a …
