GTL, Co-Defendant Agree to $21.3 Million Settlement with HRDC in Price-Fixing Lawsuit by On October 31, 2024, preliminary approval was granted to a settlement reached with the second of three prison telecom giants accused of illegal price-fixing. The suit was filed in June 2020 in United States District Court for …
Fourth Circuit Excuses Maryland Prisoner From Exhaustion Requirement in PREA Claim by Douglas Ankney by Douglas Ankney In what was otherwise a disappointing ruling for a Maryland prisoner, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held on June 14, 2024, that a prisoner need not exhaust administrative …
Wisconsin DOC Agrees to Improve Services for Hearing-Impaired Prisoners by On September 25, 2024, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) entered into a pre-litigation settlement agreement with the federal Department of Justice (DOJ), promising to improve services provided to deaf and hard of hearing prisoners, in compliance with Title II …
National Class Certified in Washington Jail Debit-Release Card Suit by In a suit challenging excessive fees charged on debit cards issued to those released from Washington’s Pierce County Jail, former detainee Plaintiffs secured nationwide class certification on February 13, 2025. But first they had to defeat a motion by Defendant …
Ohio Pauses Executions, Louisiana and Arizona Race Ahead by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) reprieved three condemned state prisoners on February 13, 2025, pushing their execution dates years down the road to give the state time to fix its broken supply chain of lethal injections drug. But Louisiana Gov. Jeff …
$7.15 Million for Oklahoma Prisoner Exonerated After Nearly 50 Years by Anthony Accurso by Anthony W. Accurso An Oklahoma prisoner who was exonerated after nearly 50 years in prison has received over $7 million in compensation so far. Glynn Ray Simmons, 71, now holds the dubious distinction of serving more …
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 …
No Opened Envelopes: Hawai’i Prisons Get New Mail Scanning Technology by The Hawai’i Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) announced in September 2024 that it would purchase nine machines to scan inbound prisoner mail—including legal mail—for drugs. The new scanners claim to detect letters soaked with drugs without opening envelopes. …
Illinois Pretrial Incarceration Becomes Less Random A Year After Elimination of Cash Bail by David Reutter by David M. Reutter One year after Illinois eliminated cash bail, state courts are not only remanding fewer people to jail to await trial but also engaging in more deliberation about pretrial detention. Those …
$2.5 Million Settlement After South Carolina Jail Detainee Lost 2 Lbs.Per Day and Died by Anthony Accurso by Anthony W. Accurso A settlement filed in federal court for the District of South Carolina on September 3, 2024, brought a resolution to a lawsuit filed by the survivors of a Greenville …
D.C. Circuit Reverses Dismissal of Federal Prisoner’s Complaint Due to PLRA Three-Strikes Rule by In a ruling on October 18, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit revived a case filed by federal prisoner Michael S. Owlfeather-Gorbey. A “prolific litigator” housed at the U.S. …
TDCJ to Run Out of Beds in 2025 by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke The Sunset Advisory Commission, an oversight body for Texas government agencies, published a 189-page report in September 2024 that found persistent critical staffing shortages are making Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) prisons unsafe for staff …
$4 Million Settlement Approved in HRDC’s Oregon Debit-Release Card Suit by On December 10, 2024, the federal court for the District of Oregon issued final approval of a $4 million settlement resolving claims by a former Portland jail detainee that money confiscated from her upon booking was eaten up by …
Little-Known Law Allows Some Texas Prisoners to Vote by Texas has an estimated 455,000 current and former felons. But no one knows if any of them voted in the November 2024 elections, nor even if any knew that they could. That is thanks to a little-known provision of state law …
Self-Harming Wisconsin Prisoner Settles Failure-to-Protect Suit for $7,000 by Sam Rutherford by Sam Rutherford Wisconsin’s Waupun Correctional Institution has been plagued by prisoner deaths and suicides, the most of recent of which are reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, Apr. 2025, p.33.] One of those who survived a suicide …
Biden Clemency Recipients Included Virginians Sentenced for “Acquitted Conduct” by Of 2,500 nonviolent drug convictions commuted just before the end of his term by Pres. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D) on January 17, 2025, two went to Virginia prisoners Terence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne, who spent decades behind bars for …
14 Overdoses in Two Weeks Leave One Dead at Phoenix Jail by Two detainees overdosed at the Maricopa County Jail in Phoenix on February 18, 2025, joining another dozen who overdosed the week before—one of whom later died. Deputies of newly elected Sheriff Jerry Sheridan suspected that one or more …
Pardoned Insurrectionists Brought to D.C. Jail Demanded Others’ Immediate Release by When Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) returned to office on January 20, 2025, he pardoned some 1,500 prisoners convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol to keep him in office in January 2021, after his loss to former Pres. Joseph …
$42 Million Jury Award for Detainees Tortured by U.S. Military at Abu Ghraib Prison by In November 2024, a federal jury in Virginia awarded $42 million to three former prisoners held and tortured at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. The case, filed in 2008, …
Three Former Virginia Jailers Charged After Detainee Dies in “WRAP” Restraint by Three former Virginia Beach Sheriff’s Department (VBSD) deputies were indicted on January 3, 2025, in the death of Rolin Hill, who suffocated in a “WRAP” restraint device at the city jail in June 2024. Charged with second-degree murder …
