News in Brief by Alabama: A Jefferson County Jail guard was briefly abducted and assaulted by detainee Reontay Harley, 33, on January 13, 2025. WBMA in Birmingham said that after Harley took the unnamed guard hostage inside a cell, responding jail Extraction Unit guards rescued their fellow guard and restrained …
A Song for Condemned Alabama Prisoner by He shot the cop. Or his co-defendant did. Or he did it, but with another uncharged codefendant. Alabama prosecutors used all three theories to try Toforest Johnson and co-defendant Ardargus Ford for the 1995 murder of Jefferson County Sheriff’s Dep. William Hardy at …
Alabama Governor Commutes Death Sentence by For only the second time in over 25 years, an Alabama governor commuted a state prisoner’s death sentence on February 28, 2025. Gov. Kay Ivey (R) took Robin “Rocky” Dion Myers, 63, off death row at Holman Correctional Facility, so he will now spend …
News in Brief by Alabama: State Department of Corrections (DOC) guard Arianna Kimberly Slater faces life in prison after she was arrested while attempting to smuggle contraband into Ventress Correctional Facility on February 24, 2025. According to the Birmingham News, a routine employee screening of Slater’s food container found unspecified …
$250,000 Settlement But No Charges After Alabama Guards Beat Prisoner To Death by Anthony Accurso by Anthony W. Accurso The Alabama Department of Finance issued a $250,000 payment on behalf of the state Department of Corrections (DOC) on August 16, 2024, settling a suit filed by the survivors of state …
Tenth Alabama Jail Employee Pleads Guilty in Detainee’s Freezing Death by On February 11, 2025, Megan Johnson, a former guard at Alabama’s Walker County Jail, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the civil rights of detainee Anthony “Tony” Mitchell when she failed to keep him from freezing to death at …
News in Brief by Alabama: Former Crenshaw County Jail Administrator Christian Alexander Porter, 33, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of excessive force, falsifying records and witness tampering on January 28, 2025. According to the Washington Post, the charges stem from an October 2021 incident in which …
News in Brief by Alabama: Clarke County Jail guard Larissa Thompson was arrested on December 5, 2024, for plotting to smuggle drugs into the lockup, the Thomasville Times reported. An investigation by state law enforcement, the office of County Sheriff DeWayne Smith, and Jackson Police uncovered evidence that Thompson planned …
No Charges in Alabama Prisoner’s Torture, Rape and Murder by Terry Williams, the father of a murdered Alabama prisoner, was reportedly left “speechless” in late October 2024 after an Elmore County grand jury refused to indict his son’s alleged attacker, another prisoner identified as “X.” Just a year earlier, Daniel …
With Eleventh Circuit Okay, Alabama Executes Third Prisoner by Nitrogen Hypoxia by Getting a green light from the United States Court of Appeals in the Eleventh Circuit, Alabama used nitrogen gas to kill prisoner Carey Dale Grayson, 50, on November 21, 2024. He told William C. Holman Correctional Facility Warden …
$400,000 Jury Verdict for Medical Neglect Resulting in Amputation of Alabama Prisoner’s Toes by On May 20, 2024, a federal jury in Alabama returned a verdict against a doctor employed by Wexford Health Sources, Inc., the private medical provider contracted by the state Department of Corrections (DOC). It was part …
BOP Prisoners in Alabama Strike to Protest Release Date Confusion by On September 11, 2024, several prisoners began a hunger strike at the Federal Prison Camp (FPC) in Montgomery, Alabama, protesting a frustrating lack of clarity about their release dates fully six years after the First Step Act of 2018 …
News in Brief by Alabama: Wiregrass Daily News reported that Mobile Metro Jail guard Timothy Lee Scarbrough, 39, was arrested on September 9, 2024, and charged with first-degree sodomy for the alleged sexual assaulting of a detainee who was still under the effects of anesthesia after eye surgery. Scarbrough had …
Alabama Shrouds Executioners in Secrecy by "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” remarked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in 1913. Given the effort put into execution secrecy by Alabama’s Department of Corrections (DOC), its death chamber needs a good deal of exposure. On September 26, 2024, …
Alabama Jail Accused of Granting Detainee’s Medical Bond Just Before Death to Avoid Costly Medical Care by David Reutter by David M. Reutter Alabama’s Dallas County Jail (DCJ) has a “scheme” of releasing very ill detainees to avoid the cost of their medical care. That explosive allegation lay at the …
News in Brief by Alabama: Former state Department of Corrections (DOC) guard Henry Guice, Jr., 46, was sentenced to 75 months in federal prison on September 9, 2024, for his role in a drug smuggling conspiracy at Staton Correctional Facility. The Birmingham News reported that a fellow guard was inspecting …
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 …
Alabama Prisoner Disciplined for Lying When Guard Cleared of Sexual Assault Allegation by On February 16, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a grant of qualified immunity (QI) to three Alabama Department of Corrections (DOC) officials and dismissed a prisoner’s suit alleging they retaliated against …
Alabama Warden and Wife Busted for Making “Magic” Mushrooms by Warden Chadwick “Chad” Ray Crabtree, 45, of Alabama’s Limestone Correctional Facility (LCF), was behind bars at Limestone County Jail on April 19, 2024, after agents from the state Department of Corrections (DOC) joined local and state cops to execute five …
More Alabama Prisoners Murdered in Overcrowded Lockups by After a string of killings at Alabama prisons blamed on overcrowding, the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest on July 7, 2024, in a long-running lawsuit over conditions at one state prison. With too few guards to adequately …
