Ohio Pays $725,000 to Survivors of Two Prisoners Beaten to Death by Lying Guards by On July 17, 2024, the Ohio Court of Claims approved a settlement between the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) and the Estate of mentally ill prisoner Dewey C. McVay, Jr., who died after …
Advanced Correctional Healthcare Ends Two Suits Over Deaths at Ohio Jail by Private jail medical providers usually win contracts with promises to save a county money. But after two federal lawsuits filed in federal court for the Northern District of Ohio in 2023 against Ohio’s Richland County and its privately …
News in Brief by Alabama: Mobile Metro Jail guard Robert Aaron Small was fired and arrested for assault on June 27, 2024, one day after he allegedly used excessive force against an unnamed detainee. WKRG in Mobile said that the guard had worked at the lockup since 2019. Mobile County …
Former Ohio Deputy Prison Warden Gets Probation for Overtime Fraud by The former Deputy Warden of Ohio’s Warren Correctional Institution was sentenced on March 20, 2024, to probation not exceeding five years, after pleading guilty to theft in office. Robert Welch, 57, admitted stealing over $19,000 in pay for overtime …
Trial Rescheduled for Ohio Prisoner Accused of Murdering Fellow Prisoner by Trial didn’t start as scheduled on July 26, 2024, for Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) prisoner Austin Burke, 25, who is accused of murdering fellow prisoner Ruben Melendez, 65, in August 2023. That’s because Burke was handed a new …
Ohio Guard Drives Over Prisoner by Disturbing video from the body-­worn camera of a guard at the Ohio Reformatory for Women captured him on March 14, 2024, as he drove a Utility Terrain Vehicle (UTV) at high speed across the grounds of the Maryville lockup and plowed into a group …
$2,000 Statutory Award Boosts Ohio Prisoner’s Total Over $9,000 for Denied Public Records by David Reutter by David M. Reutter A $2,000 award of statutory damages by the Supreme Court of Ohio on March 31, 2024, brought the total recovered by Trumball Correctional Institution (TCI) prisoner Kimani Ware for denied …
News in Brief by Alabama: On June 24, 2024, Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith told the Birmingham News that county jail guard Tony Dewayne Jackson, 29, had been arrested for smuggling “non-­drug” contraband into the lockup. Jackson was no longer working at the jail, but Smith didn’t say how or …
Ohio Supreme Court Says Prisoner’s ‘Kite’ Is Public Record, But Denies Damages for Withholding It by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke On November 22, 2023, the Supreme Court of Ohio reiterated that a prisoner’s “kite”—his communication with staff—is a public record subject to disclosure upon request. Moreover, the Court …
Sixth Circuit Revives Ohio Prisoner’s Retaliation Claim That Guards Got Him Kicked Out of Religious Group by David Reutter by David M. Reutter On December 13, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed dismissal of an Equal Protection Clause claim by Ohio prisoner Lyle Heyward …
Cleveland Jail Warden Dismissed After Asking for More Reentry Assistance for Detainees by According to a report on December 7, 2023, when Warden Jeremy Everett sounded the alarm two months earlier over insufficient reentry assistance at Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County Jail, the administration of County Executive Chris Ronayne demanded Everett resign. …
“You Just Broke My Neck”: Ohio Detainee Sues Jail Where Guards Are Accused of Multiple Assaults by Calling it “one of the most blatant and outrageous uses of excessive force” he’s ever seen, Cleveland attorney Nick DeCello of Spangenberg Shibley & Liber LLP filed suit in federal court for the …
Elderly Ohio Prisoner Beaten by Cellmate Despite Warning Guards, Who Cheered Attack by In a lawsuit filed in federal court for the Northern District of Ohio on March 18, 2024, state prisoner Darryl Smith accuses Mansfield Correctional Institution (MCI) guards of ignoring warnings he was being threatened by his cellmate, …
Two Ohio Prisoners and Two Guards Tried for Assaults by Two Ohio prisoners have pleaded guilty to assaulting guards, while trials of two other guards accused of assaulting jail detainees in the state resulted in one conviction and one acquittal. On October 25, 2023, Ohio prisoner Drequan K. Abdullah, 24, …
Ohio Supreme Court Orders Records Produced for State Prisoner by David Reutter by David M. Reutter On November 7, 2023, the Supreme Court of Ohio rebuffed a request from the office of state Attorney General Dave Yost (R) to reconsider a grant of a state prisoner’s mandamus action. That left …
NaphCare: More Proof That Privatized Healthcare Deals Death and Misery to the Incarcerated to Enhance Profits by David Reutter by David M. Reutter A settlement approved by the federal court for the Eastern District of California on January 16, 2024, recalls an all-­too familiar jail story. A wheelchair-­bound detainee named …
“More jobs than people”: Prisoners Training to Work on Ohio Infrastructure Projects after Release by With unemployment at historic lows, Ohio is preparing prisoners for jobs after release by offering training in technical skills. In December 2023, the first group of eight state prisoners completed one such program, after training …
$900,000 Settlement Reached With Ohio Jail in Detainee’s Fatal Seizure by David Reutter by David M. Reutter In October 2023, an attorney representing the estate of an Ohio pretrial jail detainee who suffered a fatal seizure after her June 2018 incarceration said the parties had reached a $900,000 settlement agreement. …
Stone v. Mahoning County, OH, Settlement, Sex Based Employment Discrimination, 2024 SETTLEMENT RELEASE The following is a Release of all Claims between Plaintiff, Mary Stone (Pseudonym), and Defendants, Mahoning County, Ohio, William Cappabianca, Kenneth Kountz, and Joseph Hood in Mary Stone (Pseudonym), v. Mahoning County, et al., Northern District of …
Bleise v. Ohio Department of Rehab and Corrections, OH, Complaint, Breach of Contract -Failure to Protect, 2024 ELECTRONICALLY FILED COURT OF COMMON PLEAS Tuesday, February 13, 2024 2:25:40 PM CASE NUMBER: 2024 CV 00813 Docket ID: 273926626 Mike Foley CLERK OF COURTS MONTGOMERY COUNTY OHIO IN THE COMMON PLEAS COURT …
