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Article • August 1, 2025 • from PLN August, 2025
From the Editor by Paul Wright   After 35 years of publishing Prison Legal News, one thing that has become clear is that when it comes to the American criminal justice system, not all stories have an ending; some are fairly characterized as never-ending stories. We have reported on Rikers Island …
Article • August 1, 2025 • from PLN August, 2025
Sixth Circuit Holds Dismissal Not Automatic When Plaintiff Simultaneously Files Same Claims in State Court by Anthony Accurso The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of a plaintiff’s claim of retaliation, finding the district court misapplied a waiver doctrine that prevented persons from …
Article • July 15, 2025 • from PLN July, 2025
Ohio Sued by Non-Profit Law Firm for Opening Prisoner Legal Mail by On May 6, 2025, the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, a non-profit law firm, filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (DRC) over the practice of intercepting mail between prisoners and their attorneys. The …
Article • June 1, 2025 • from PLN June, 2025
Arkansas DOC Settles Retaliation Claim by Prisoner Who Also Won Back Confiscated COVID-19 Stimulus by After the Arkansas Department of Corrections (DOC) reached a settlement with state prisoner Anthony Lamar in his retaliation claim against officials at the Varner Unit, the federal court for the Eastern District of Arkansas granted …
Article • June 1, 2025 • from PLN June, 2025
Smart Communications Files for Bankruptcy Protection by Smart Communications Holding, Inc., provides a variety of communications services in prisons and jails nationwide, including phone calls, video calling, tablets and e-messaging. It’s best known for its mail scanning program, MailGuard, which digitizes correspondence sent to prisoners and provides the scans on …
Article • June 1, 2025 • from PLN June, 2025
$50,000 for Excessive Force Claim by Maryland Prisoner Who Used to Be a Guard by On March 19, 2025, an agreement was reached paying $50,000 to a Maryland prisoner—who is also a former Baltimore jailer—to settle his claim that he was subjected to excessive force by a guard at Western …
BOP Jettisons Transgender Offender Manual by In a memo dated February 25, 2025, acting federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director William Lothrop canceled the agency’s Transgender Offender Manual and ordered its removal from federal prison libraries and the BOP intranet. The move is the latest attempt to comply with an …
No Opened Envelopes: Hawai’i Prisons Get New Mail Scanning Technology by The Hawai’i Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) announced in September 2024 that it would purchase nine machines to scan inbound prisoner mail—including legal mail—for drugs. The new scanners claim to detect letters soaked with drugs without opening envelopes. …
Article • March 1, 2025 • from PLN March, 2025
California Lawmakers Address CDCR’s Banned Book List by Corrections officials usually limit what prisoners are allowed to read. A 2022 report by the nonprofit Marshall Project found that half the United States maintains lists of prohibited publications. California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has some 3,000 disapproved books and …
Article • February 15, 2025 • from PLN February, 2025
Sixth Circuit: Leaman Doctrine Did Not Bar Ohio Prisoner’s Pro Se Federal Civil Rights Suit Over Interference with Legal Mail by In an important decision on February 6, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that an Ohio prisoner’s federal civil rights claims against state …
Article • January 15, 2025 • from PLN January, 2025
Pigeonly Flies Into Telecom Turbulence, Declares Bankruptcy by Pigeonly, Inc., a prison communication startup founded by former prisoner Frederick Hutson, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 26, 2024, in United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada in Las Vegas. Pigeonly contracts with jails and prisons to …
Article • January 15, 2025 • from PLN January, 2025
Push to Digitize Rikers Island Mail Based on Faulty Drug Tests by Since 2022, New York City’s Department of Correction (DOC) has warned that its Rikers Island jail complex was swamped with letters soaked in fentanyl and other contraband drugs. As a result, DOC officials called to follow the state …
Article • January 15, 2025 • from PLN January, 2025
Blood in the Water Author Wins Censorship Challenges Against Illinois, New York Prison Systems by Douglas Ankney by Douglas Ankney In 2016, University of Michigan Professor Heather Ann Thompson published Blood in the Water, a book about the 1971 uprising at New York’s Attica State Prison that claimed the lives …
Article • January 15, 2025 • from PLN January, 2025
Minnesota Prisoners Getting Scanned Mail, Kept Waiting 18 Months for Tablets by Starting November 1, 2024, prisoners held by the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) stopped getting physical mail, which is now diverted to Baltimore for electronic scanning by private contractor TextBehind. Printed copies of the scans—complete with all the …
Article • January 15, 2025 • from PLN January, 2025
California Prisoner Awarded Over $1.26 Million in Suit Challenging Withheld Legal Mail Which Resulted in Habeas Loss by David Reutter by David M. Reutter On November 12, 2024, the federal court for the Eastern District of California entered judgment in favor of state prisoner Anthony Penton, adding $788,744.97 to an …
Filing • December 30, 2024
Human Rights Defense Center v. Pacific County, et al., WA, Complaint, Censorship, 2024 Case 3:24-cv-06068 Document 1 Filed 12/30/24 Page 1 of 14 1 2 3 4 5 6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT TACOMA 7 8 HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENSE CENTER, No. 9 Plaintiff, COMPLAINT 10 …
Human Rights Defense Center v. Pacific County, et al., WA, Complaint, Censorship, 2024 Case 3:24-cv-06068 Document 1 Filed 12/30/24 Page 1 of 14 1 2 3 4 5 6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT TACOMA 7 8 HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENSE CENTER, No. 9 Plaintiff, COMPLAINT 10 …
Article • December 15, 2024 • from PLN December, 2024
Georgia Jail Sued by Local Bookstore Banned from Sending Detainees Reading Materials by When the Avid Bookshop mailed several book orders to prisoners at the Gwinnett County Jail outside Atlanta in May 2023, the Athens retailer likely didn’t expect to become embroiled in a lawsuit almost a year later. Then …
HRDC v. Ishee, et al., NC, Settlement Agreement and Release, 2024 Docusign Envelope ID: 19D17FBB-93C2-469E-876F-033496C202CE EXECUTION COPY UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA WESTERN DIVISION HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENSE CENTER, v. Civil Action No. 5:21-CV-469-FL Plaintiff, SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT AND RELEASE ISHEE et al., Defendants. This SETTLEMENT …
HRDC v. Ishee, et al., NC, Settlement Agreement and Release, 2024 Docusign Envelope ID: 19D17FBB-93C2-469E-876F-033496C202CE EXECUTION COPY UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA WESTERN DIVISION HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENSE CENTER, v. Civil Action No. 5:21-CV-469-FL Plaintiff, SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT AND RELEASE ISHEE et al., Defendants. This SETTLEMENT …
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