PLRA Physical Injury Rule Does Not Apply to Mail Claims by The court of appeals for the Seventh circuit held that prefiling screening under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) applies to all prisoner lawsuits, regardless of their fee status and the PLRA's physical injury requirement does not apply to …
HIV+ Detainee States Conditions Claim by A federal district court in Indiana held that an HIV positive detainee was entitled to a trial to resolve his claims over inhumane conditions of confinement and discrimination due to his HIV status. Edward Roop was arrested on a warrant after arguing with a …
WA and IN Prison Phone Rates Challenged by On June 20, 2000, a class action suit was filed in King county (Seattle) superior court in Washington. The suit claims that various phone companies that have contracted with the Washington Department of Corrections to provide collect call services for Washington prisoners …
IN Jail Settles Victim Suit for $650,000 by On September 10, 1999, the Howard County jail in Indiana settled a lawsuit by crime victims for $650,000. A mother, 44, and her 9 year old daughter were physically and sexually assaulted by a prisoner who escaped from the jail by using …
Denial Of Food and Medicine Supports Eighth Amendment Claim by Ronald Young The court of appeals for the Seventh circuit held that a prisoner's medical condition was sufficiently serious to support an Eighth Amendment claim, and material fact issues existed as to whether officials acted with deliberate indifference toward the …
Sandin Does Not Apply to Pretrial Detainees by The Seventh Circuit court of appeals has held that a pretrial detainee may not be punished for his crime prior to conviction and that Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995), does not apply to suits by pretrial detainees. Ricky Joe Rapier …
Probable Cause Hearing Delay Actionable by Ronald Young The court of appeals for the Seventh circuit held that the fact issue as to whether an arrestee's detention without a probable cause hearing resulted from the sheriff's deliberate decision not to monitor detainees brought to jail by outside agencies precluded summary …
Twenty-Four Hour Notice of Disciplinary Charges Required by Afederal district court in Indiana held that a prisoner's right to due process was violated when he was not provided with 24 hour notice of the disciplinary charges against him. Darnell Evans, an Indiana state prisoner, was infracted on charges of "giving …
Illegal Detention Violates Substantive Due Process by The court of appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the detention of an individual for 57 days in a county jail on a civil contempt warrant "shocks the conscience" and violates substantive due process. The court further held that this right was …
Indiana May Not Deny Pay and Educational Programs to Protective Custody Prisoners by The Court of Appeals of Indiana has held that the Indiana Department of Corrections (DOC) violated state law, Title 11, Section 11-10-5-1 when it denied all education programs to prisoners in protective custody. The court held that …
Indiana Jail Ban on Publications Struck Down by In an unpublished ruling, on May 13, 1998, a federal district court in Indiana held that a county jail's policy prohibiting prisoners from receiving publications from any source outside the jail was unconstitutional. In 1997 the St. Joseph county jail in Indiana …
Deportation Moots Federal Habeas Appeal by The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled that deportation, during the appeal from the denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus by a state prisoner, moots the appeal. Fabio Diaz, a citizen of the Dominican Republic, was an …
Untimely Jury Demand Must be Fairly Considered by Untimely Jury Demand Must Be Fairly Considered According to the Seventh Circuit, a district court must fairly consider a pro se prisoner's untimely request for jury trial. The court also held that the prisoner's failure to answer defendants' motion for summary judgment …
Segregation Requires Less Due Process by The court of appeals for the Seventh circuit held that prisoners facing only the prospect of disciplinary segregation are entitled to less due process than when the sanction imposed involves the loss of good time credits. The court also questioned, but did not decide, …
UNICOR Worker Receives $928.32 for Lost Hand by The court of appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a prisoner could bring a Bivens claim separate from any claim brought under a workers' compensation scheme. However, because the evidence of the prison officials' failure to protect did not rise to …
Golitko v. Cohn, IN, Indigence Affidavit Appeal, 1998 STATE OF INDIANA COUNTY OF MARION ) )ss: ) JOHN GOLITKO, et al., Plaintiffs, v. INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION, et al., Defendants. IN THE MARION CIRCUIT COURT CAUSE NO. 49C01-9711-CP-2717 ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) MOTION TO …
Seventh Circuit Upholds Constitutionality of Physical Injury Requirement by The court of appeals for the seventh circuit upheld the constitutionality of section 803(d) of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) which limits money damages to only those cases involving physical injury. Several Indiana state prisoners filed suit under the Eighth …
Transgender Treatment Questioned by The court of appeals for the seventh circuit issued a ruling that prisoners suffering from gender dysphoria (i.e., transexualism) are not entitled to curative treatment under the eighth amendment. The ruling is extremely unusual in that it comes as an "advisory opinion." A long standing judicial …
Human Rights Watch Condemns Indiana Control Units by Daniel Burton-Rose In October, 1997 the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) released Cold Storage: Super-Maximum Security Confinement in Indiana , a report on the Maximum Control Facility at Westville and the Secured Housing Unit at the Wabash Valley Correctional …
Some PLRA Fee Questions Answered by the Seventh Circuit by The court of appeals for the seventh circuit held that once a trial court determines that an appeal is taken in bad faith, a prisoner is disqualified from proceeding in forma pauperis on appeal. Any subsequent appeal, if determined to …
