by Chuck Sharman

New York’s Onondaga County agreed to pay a former detainee in the County jail $100,000 on March 3, 2026, resolving her claim for denial of medical care during a gruesome 30-hour labor while giving birth to an infant daughter who was then transported to a Syracuse hospital and died. An earlier settlement for an undisclosed amount was reached with private jail healthcare contractor NaphCare, LLC, Advance Media New York reported.

Cheree Byrd, then 35, was released from the Onondaga County Justice Center (OCJC) on August 2, 2022, the day after her baby died. When she was booked into the lockup a month earlier—on a misdemeanor petit larceny charge that Syracuse Police later dropped—she was just three months pregnant. Within a few weeks, she began complaining to jailers that she was in pain and suspected she was in premature labor. They gave her Tylenol and tampons, but nothing else, according to the complaint later filed on her behalf.

On July 29, staffers with NaphCare, the OCJC’s then-healthcare contractor, finally placed her on medical watch, owing to her history of premature labor. But when she reported that her water had broken, guards disbelieved it, chalking …

by Michael Dean Thompson

Wexford Health Services, Inc. is a private healthcare profiteer that contracts with prison systems and jails across the country, offering “comprehensive” medical services to incarcerated persons. However, Wexford provides opioid withdrawal treatment only as an optional service at additional cost to the prison or jail systems that choose it.

Three formerly incarcerated people sued over this practice and pushed to have their lawsuit certified as a class action. The district court certified two distinct classes—a Damages class and an Injunctive Relief class. On appeal, a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the Damages class and remanded the Injunctive Relief class for more fact finding in April of this year.

Lauren Spurlock, Heather Smith and Shawn Zmudzinski have all suffered from Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) for years. They also landed in institutions where Wexford provides “comprehensive” medical care. For Spurlck and Smith, those were in West Virginia, while Zmudzinski was in New Mexico. Wexford offers Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD), but only as an option for the contracting prison or jail as a cost-saving measure.

Furthermore, systems can choose to exclude MOUD even …

by David Reutter

On March 26, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of qualified immunity under Michigan law in a gross negligence claim related to a scabies infestation at a women’s prison. The Court also affirmed the grant of qualified immunity to upper echelon officials on an Eighth Amendment claim.

Starting in November 2016, as PLN reported, the Huron Valley Correctional Facility for Women (Huron Valley) became infested with scabies. The infestation manifested in over 200 prisoners, which is 10% of Huron Valley’s incarcerated population. Scabies infections existed in eight of the prison’s fifteen units. [See: PLN, Apr. 2019, p.58.]

Scabies occurs when parasitic mites burrow under a person’s outer layer of skin and lay eggs. Affected prisoners developed red bumps and lesions on their wrists, fingers, armpits, waists and genitals. The “rentless” itching and “perpetual discomfort” left many prisoners unable to sleep and drove others to contemplate suicide. The prisoners pleaded for help from the Michigan Department of Corrections’ (DOC) private healthcare vendor, Corizon Healthcare.

For years, Corizon misdiagnosed the infestation as being caused by prisoners who washed their own clothes instead of sending them to …

by Nichole Manna

For 30 minutes, Brian Tracey lay naked and unable to breathe on the floor of the medical ward at the St. Johns County Detention Center, a low-roofed building south of Jacksonville, Florida. It was Dec. 15, 2023, the day Tracey was supposed to be released from jail.

By the time deputies noticed him, it was too late. His girlfriend, who’d posted bond for Tracey after nine days, waited outside for him but was instead greeted by a deputy and chaplain, who told her Tracey was dead.

Medical staff working for the jail’s health provider, Armor Health of St. Johns County LLC, an affiliate of Miami-based Armor Health, said Tracey, 62, was showing flu-like symptoms and suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung condition that makes it difficult to breathe. In the days and hours before his death, Tracey had passed out and appeared confused, according to a police report from the county sheriff’s office, which investigated the death. Much of what is known about how he died comes from this report, which includes Tracey’s autopsy, interviews with deputies and medical staff, and a description of a video of Tracey in the medical …

by Chuck Sharman

On June 24, 2026, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York awarded $3.25 million in damages to former jail detainee Thomas Donohue against Armor Correctional Health, which held the contract at the time of his 2014 incarceration to provide medical care at the Nassau County Correctional Center (NCCC) on Long Island. The firm has since gone through a bankruptcy reorganization that left it with a new name, Armor Health, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, July 2026, p.1.]

The state’s then-Attorney General, Eric Scheiderman (D), sued the firm in 2016, blaming a spate of NCCC deaths in part on shoddy medical care. As PLN reported, Armor settled the suit the following year with a $350,000 payment and a promise not to bid for business in the state for three years. Similar complaints across the country dogged the firm into bankruptcy, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, July 2017, p.30; and July 2026, p.1.]

County cops arrested Donohue, then 48, in September 2014 on suspicion of a pair of bank robberies in West Hempstead and East Meadow, according to a report at the …

by Chuck Sharman

In March 2026, after what was likely the first-ever civil sanction against a private prison company for spoliation of evidence, CoreCivic settled a suit filed over the suicide of a Brazilian migrant at the company’s Torrance County Detention Facility (TCDF), a lockup operated under contract for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Estancia, New Mexico.

According to the complaint filed on his behalf, Kelsey Vial, 23, presented himself to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol upon arrival in the country in April 2022 and asked for asylum. He was turned over to ICE and held at TCDF to await an immigration court hearing on his asylum request. Though he confessed to experiencing suicidal ideation as a 14-year-old during an interview with a CoreCivic mental health practitioner, Vial was placed in the prison’s general population.

His asylum request was quickly denied, and a final order for his removal from the country was issued on June 13. Two days later, in a follow-up interview with the same CoreCivic Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Reev Pierce, the detainee said “that he was crying a lot, he was having trouble sleeping, and he was engaged in self-harm—he had …

by Chuck Sharman

In a decision issued on February 25, 2026, the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) affirmed dismissal of an appeal filed by prison profiteer The GEO Group, after a federal district court refused to grant the firm immunity from a suit challenging conditions at a Colorado lockup it runs for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

No court has yet reached the merits of the suit, even though it was filed in 2014. The Plaintiffs—Alejandro Menocal and group of fellow ICE detainees—accused GEO of violating state and federal law by forcing them to work for pay far below minimum wage while held at the firm’s Aurora Detention Facility in Colorado.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado greenlit two of Plaintiffs’ claims—that GEO violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1589, and that it was unjustly enriched by paying them just $1 a day to work in the prison. As PLN reported, the district court then certified two classes of Plaintiffs, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed. [See: PLN, Apr. 16, 2018, online.]

After several years of discovery, GEO moved for summary …

by Michael Dean Thompson

The Davis Correctional Facility (DCF), a medium security prison in Holdenville, was described by The Oklahoman as little-known. Yet, over the last four years, 20 detainees and a prison guard have suffered violent deaths at the hands of prisoners. That contrasts with the better-known maximum-security prison, the Oklahoma State Prison in McAlester, which has had only nine murders, excluding executions.

A review by The Oklahoman of the homicides at DCF shows that for at least seven the perpetrators remain uncharged. Hughes County District Attorney Erik Johnson said about the prison, “It’s like gladiator academy.”

The death of one particular prisoner stands out as preventable as two different videos show guards behind a closed cell door watched the murder. According to The Oklahoman, “Dustin James Patterson didn’t have to die.”

The incident started as Connor Whitlock, a guard at Davis, was performing the 2 a.m. count and found Darren Padron with his cellmate in a chokehold. Whitlock described Patterson “clawing at Padron’s arms and head. Trying to get him off of him.” Over and over, he asked Padron to stop. Whitlock sprayed pepper spray into the cell before calling for help, but …

by Matt Clarke

Brentwood, Tennessee-based CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) operates the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center (TTCC), the state’s largest prison, and three other Tennessee prisons for the state Department of Corrections (DOC). But despite the company’s large footprint in Tennessee, its legacy is dismal at best as former prison guards and prisoners paint a picture of prisons severely understaffed, awash in drugs, virtually run by gangs, and overwhelmed by beatings, stabbings and rapes. Local prosecutors have complained of having insufficient staff to prosecute all the felony cases that they get from TTCC—which amount to more than 204 since 2021, including 26 prosecutions of CoreCivic employees.

Poor Performance

On August 20, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it was opening an investigation into TTCC, which is located northeast of Nashville, due to alleged violations of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1997-1997j. The DOJ pointed specifically to “reports of staff shortages, physical and sexual assaults, murders, and a 188% turnover rate among prison guards just last year.”

Former U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Henry C. Leventis, who helmed the office at the time and announced …

by Douglas Ankney

On November 20, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit revived the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit of Juliana Swink, Administrator of the Estate of David Ray Gunter, that alleged, inter alia, claims of deliberate indifference under Monell v. Dept of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978), and under the 14th Amendment to the federal constitution.

Pursuant to a bench warrant related to a charge of driving on a suspended license, Gunter was detained in the Davie County Detention Center (“DCDC”) from November 7, 2012, through November 15, 2012. On November 16, 2012, he was transferred to the Stokes County Detention Center (“SCDC”), where he remained until his release on November 21, 2012.

Approximately one week later, Gunter sought treatment for severe stomach pain at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center (“Medical Center”) on November 29, 2012. Doctors at the Medical Center surgically removed a blood clot and Gunter was discharged from the Medical Center on December 11, 2012. However, further complications developed and on January 18, 2013, Gunter was diagnosed with a second blood clot that required surgeons to resect a portion of his bowel. On December 27, 2016, …