$3,500 Settlement Reached in Double Suit Claiming Due Process and Human Rights Violations by A $3,500 settlement was reached in a consolidated agreement arising from two separate suits filed by Bernard E. Berton, Jr. against the District of Columbia Department of Corrections. The first case arose when Berton, a prisoner …
False Claims Act’s Seal Provisions Held Unconstitutional by The Seal provisions of the False Claims Act (FCA) do not violate the First Amendment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decided March 28, 2011. The FCA allows private citizens to bring suit on behalf of the United States …
U.S. Supreme Court: State P&A Can Sue Another State Agency for Records by David Reutter U.S. Supreme Court: State P&A Can Sue Another State Agency for Records by David Reutter The U.S. Supreme Court held on April 19, 2011 that sovereign immunity does not apply when one agency of a …
Virginia Supreme Court Says Plethysmograph Evidence Inadmissible by The Virginia Supreme Court has held that plethysmograph evidence is inadmissible in all judicial proceedings without foundation as to reliability. Matthew Edwards Billips committed several sex offenses involving young children when he was 18 years old. He was convicted of those offenses …
Virginia City Settles Suit for $1.1M after Cop Kills Teen by Aaron Brown, an Alexandria, Virginia teenager, was shot to death in the parking lot of an International House of Pancakes (IHOP) by an Alexandria cop named Carl Stowe on February 25, 2006. Stowe shot at 18-year-old Brown's vehicle to …
Federal Court Dismisses Virginia Lifers’ Parole Suit by On October 25, 2010, a federal district court dismissed a complaint brought by eleven Virginia Department of Corrections prisoners who alleged due process and ex post facto violations with respect to their parole hearings. The prisoners had sought to represent a class …
Fourth Circuit: Virginia Not Immune from RLUIPA Suit by On December 29, 2006, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) was a valid exercise of Congress’ spending powers and that the State of Virginia was subject to its requirements because …
Virginia DOC Settles Lawsuit to Improve Communication for Deaf Prisoners by The Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by deaf prisoners. The settlement makes substantial changes to improve such prisoners’ ability to interact in the prison environment and rehabilitate themselves. “We believe the settlement …
Sawyer v. Stolle, VA, Complaint, Untreated Diabetes Wrongful Death, 2011 Case 2:11-cv-00446-RGD-TEM Document 1 Filed 08/11/11 Page 1 of 23 PageID# 1 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA EVEL YN SAWYER as Administratrix of the ESTATE OF DOUGLAS POOLE 721 Stanwix Square Norfolk, VA …
No Right to Destruction of Juvenile Records in Virginia by David Reutter By David M. Reutter The Virginia Supreme Court has held that there is no vested right under state law to have juvenile records destroyed. The Court, however, found that an expert’s testimony was inadmissible because that testimony was …
Former Virginia Beach Sheriff Received Insider Information on Jail Contract by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke Within a few days after his retirement as Sheriff of Virginia Beach, Virginia in late 2009, Paul Lanteigne went to work for Conmed Healthcare Management, Inc. and began exchanging emails with and receiving documents …
Blind Virginia Prisoner Settles Suit to Accommodate Disability by A blind prisoner has settled her federal lawsuit that claimed the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) and Virginia Department of Correctional Education (VDCE) violated Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act by failing …
Virginia DOC Settles Censorship Suit Over The Final Call by The Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a prisoner at Red Onion State Prison over the rejection of numerous issues of The Final Call, a newspaper of the Nation of Islam. Kelvin Brown …
Hopes Dashed for Criminal Defendants Facing Deportation in Virginia by Derek Gilna In an interesting development resulting from the case of Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S.Ct. 1473 (2010) [PLN, Aug. 2010, p.11], a General District Court in Loudoun County, Virginia reopened four cases involving defendants who said they would not …
Virginia ACLU Requests DOJ Investigation into Jail Deaths by Mark Wilson The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Virginia has asked the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate conditions at the Richmond City Jail following the June 2010 deaths of two prisoners, one of which was heat-related while the …
Fourth Circuit: Most Police Records in DNA Exoneration Case Are Public by On October 1, 2004, the Fourth Circuit court of appeals decided that most of the sealed documents in a lawsuit involving the DNA exoneration of a man convicted of a rape-murder should be available to the public. Earl …
Virginia Prisoner’s 8th Amendment Claims Dismissed by From January 1994 to September 1994, Darrell Coppage was a prisoner at the Rappahanock Security Center (RSC) in Virginia. For several months of his stay at RSC, Coppage experienced pain, paralysis, and incontinence due to an undiagnosed cancerous tumor at the base of …
Virginia Federal Court Invalidates DOC Ban on Sexually Explicit Books by David Reutter by David M. Reutter A U.S. District Court has held that a Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) policy which prohibits “works of literature which include an explicit description of a sexual act or intercourse” is unconstitutional, both …
D.C. Department of Corrections Employee Exposed to Environmental Pollutants Settles for $10,000 by On July 18, 2006, the District of Columbia paid $10,000 to settle with a Department of Corrections employee who suffered respiratory illness after exposure to environmental pollutants. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the …
Virginia Prisoner Kills Cellmate, Requests Death Sentence by Mark Wilson “I murdered that man cold-bloodedly. I planned it, and I’m gonna do it again,” said Virginia state prisoner Robert Gleason, Jr., 40, after murdering his cellmate, Harvey Gray Watson, Jr. “Someone needs to stop it. The only way to stop …
