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Washington County Pays $300,000 to Jail Detainee Denied Treatment for Kidney Stone by Chuck Sharman by Chuck Sharman Under a settlement with Washington’s Walla Walla County, a now-released state prisoner took a $300,000 payment to resolve claims that he was denied treatment for a kidney stone while in pretrial detention …
Competency Crisis in Missouri’s Jails by Douglas Ankney by Douglas Ankney The cover story of the June 2025 issue of PLN reported that “[d]espite years of litigation, injunctions, consent decrees, and contempt fines ranging into the hundreds of millions,” the State of Washington had “consistently failed to provide timely competency …
Sixth Circuit Reinstates Lawsuit Over Failure to Properly Classify Violent Prisoners at Kentucky Jail by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke On December 17, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reinstated a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by the guardian of a man who was severely …
Deportation of Kenyan Priest Working as Texas Prison Guard Highlights TDCJ’s Dependence on Immigrant Staff by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke The Rev. James Eliud Ngahu Mwangi, an Episcopal priest, was working as a prison guard in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) until federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement …
Former Prisoners’ Challenge to Virginia Constitution’s Felony Disenfranchisement Clause Allowed to Proceed by Douglas Ankney   by Douglas Ankney   On December 5, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed an order of the district court permitting Plaintiffs Tati Abu King and Toni Heath Johnson (collectively …
Date of Firing Squad Execution Vacated for Utah Prisoner with Dementia by Chuck Sharman by Chuck Sharman With just a week to go before his scheduled execution by firing squad, attorneys for Utah prisoner Ralph Menzies, 67, won a stay from the state Supreme Court on August 29, 2025, after …
Nevada Court of Appeals Revives Detainee’s Failure-­to-­Protect Claim Against CoreCivic by Douglas Ankney by Douglas Ankney On December 24, 2025, the Nevada Court of Appeals reversed the state district court’s dismissal of pretrial detainee David North’s claim that CoreCivic, the private prison operator, violated his due process rights under the …
Article • May 1, 2025 • from PLN May, 2025
Rikers Island Detainees Wait in “Black Hole” for Competency Treatment by The number of detainees waiting for competency treatment at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex jumped from 100 in 2024 to 127 by February 2025. The average length of stay has also risen, from 70 to 80 days, …
Article • May 1, 2025 • from PLN May, 2025
Wisconsin Prisoner Inhaled His Own Teeth in Fatal Beatdown by On January 8, 2025, Racine County Jail detainee Davonte Carraway, 29, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the brutal and fatal beating nine days earlier of state prisoner Joseph Lee, 35. Lee was found “stuffed into a garbage can” …
Article • April 1, 2025 • from PLN April, 2025
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 …
$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, …
Porn Produced by Georgia Prisoners by On July 16, 2024, the Human & Civil Rights Coalition (HCRC) of Georgia posted screenshots to its Facebook page from pornographic videos produced inside Wilcox State Prison and posted online by state prisoners. As the post noted, the videos ran up to 45 minutes, …
Prison Profiteers Ready to Help Trump Make Good on Deportation Threats by Because incoming Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) vowed during his campaign to launch “the largest deportation operation in American history,” the stocks of private prison companies, including The GEO Group and CoreCivic, spiked after his election victory on …
In Oregon Case, Ninth Circuit Limits Pretrial Detention Without Counsel to Seven Days by On May 31, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s order granting a class-­action habeas corpus petition and corresponding injunction, directing the state of Oregon to provide attorneys for …
California Supreme Court Refuses Challenge to LWOP Sentence Imposed for Crime Committed After Age 18 by Under California Penal Code § 3051, prisoners who were 18 to 25 years old when they committed certain crimes are eligible for parole after serving 15, 20 or 25 years, even if sentenced to life …
Condemned Alabama Prisoner Challenges Execution by Nitrogen Hypoxia by David Reutter by David M. Reutter Citing Alabama’s “bad track record of botched executions,” death row prisoner David P. Wilson, 41, filed a civil rights action on February 15, 2024, alleging that the state’s intended use of nitrogen hypoxia to execute …
Dead Rikers Island Detainees Had Missed Dozens of Mental Health Appointments by A report released by New York City’s Board of Correction (BOC) on February 9, 2024, chided city jail officials for allowing mentally ill detainees to miss dozens of mental health appointments before they died. Nine deaths were recorded …
Inspectors Catch L.A. Jailers Watching Porn by When inspectors from Los Angeles County’s independent Sybil Brand Commission toured the Men’s Central Jail on May 10, 2024, they were alarmed to find a noose hanging in one detainee’s cell. But when one went to guards, they brushed off his report—because the …
First Circuit Tolls Claim for Maine Jail Death from Date of Detainee’s Injury, Rather Than When He Died by Douglas Ankney by Douglas Ankney Of the many hurdles prisoners and jail detainees face, the statute of limitations for a civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is among the first. …
Article • May 1, 2024 • from PLN May, 2024
North Carolinian Left in Jail Awaiting Trial for 11 Years by On December 14, 2023, over a decade of pre-trial detention finally came to an end for a Charlotte murder suspect. Devalos Perkins, 37, pleaded guilty in Mecklenburg County District Court to voluntary manslaughter in the 2005 slaying of Justin …
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