by J.D. Schmidt

On November 14, 2022, the Florida arm of Centurion Health, one of the nation’s largest private prison and jail healthcare companies, filed a lawsuit in Putnam County against the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), the nonprofit publisher of PLN and its sister publication, Criminal Legal News.

Centurion ...

By Paul Wright

The abysmal state of detention facility healthcare has been a staple of PLN coverage since our inception in 1990. If anything, it has steadily gotten worse over the years, but one factor that has driven the decrease in care has been the rise in private, for profit ...

A lawsuit filed in federal court against San Diego County and various jail employees settled on March 20, 2023, for $7.75 million, following four years of litigation. The underlying facts unfolded the year before that began, in January 2018, when Army veteran Frankie Greer, 58, was arrested and taken to ...

In a weird-but-true story that’s oddly fitting for Alabama’s wretched prison system, the body of a state prisoner murdered on November 16, 2023, was returned to his survivors five days later without a heart.

That is the claim of a lawsuit filed in federal court for the Northern District of ...

by K. Robert Schaeffer

How an incarcerated writer is fighting a sad new normal of censorship and mail obstruction in Pennsylvania prisons

This essay originally appeared in Inquest on October 19, 2023. The original can be found at https://inquest.org/misadventures-in-mail-censorship/

From August into September 2018, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PADOC) ...

According to a report published by The Sentencing Project on June 15, 2023, the federal government and 27 states incarcerated 96,370 people in private prisons in 2021, amounting to 8% of America’s prison population.

Private prisons are not used to house prisoners in the other 23 states. But private prisons ...

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. ch.126 § 12101 et seq., and the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., prisoners who are deaf or hard of hearing are entitled to reasonable accommodations so they can communicate and participate in activities, programs and services to the same extent ...

Former Bureau of Prisons (BOP) guard Andrew Jones, 36, is now part of the notorious “rape club” at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, receiving the longest sentence so far in the ongoing scandal when U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers sent him to prison for eight years, followed ...

A mortality study released on December 1, 2023, found that the death rate in U.S. prisons spiked 77% during 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, not all the increase was directly attributable to the disease.

The study was the most comprehensive yet of the pandemic’s toll on ...

by Matt Clarke

A $7 million settlement reached in April 2023 marked the latest chapter in a sordid tale of mismanagement at Bi-State Jail (BSJ) in Texarkana, Texas, by former private operator LaSalle Corrections. But the family-owned prison profiteer, based in Ruston, Louisiana—which ended its contract to run BSJ in ...

A report by human rights group Cristosal on May 29, 2023, detailed how lethal El Salvador’s war on the Central American country’s gangs has been: 153 people have died in custody since Pres. Nayib Bukele’s campaign began in March 2022. Targeting MS-13 and Barrio 18 gang members, the effort has ...

A nonprofit is asking for help for 23 former Los Angeles County jail detainees who completed work and education programs but were never credited promised time off the sentences they eventually received. KeepYourWordCali says the detainees participated in the Education-Based Incarceration/Merit Program but did not receive time credits promised pursuant ...

“Any lawyer practicing in this State should get an uneasy feeling when a request for sanctions is made under controlling case law in Washington,” wrote a King County Superior Court judge in an order dated March 21, 2023. Requiring state Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) and the Department of Social ...

A former Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) guard at Lake Correctional Institution (LCI) was sentenced on October 20, 2023, to five years in state prison for killing a mentally ill prisoner. That was after another prisoner reached a $125,000 settlement with DOC in January 2022 for an assault he suffered ...

On September 28, 2023, Sheriff Mark A. Brave of New Hampshire’s Strafford County was arraigned on charges he stole $19,000 in phony reimbursements for attending conferences he missed or which never occurred. He is also accused of perjury for lying about staying alone in hotel rooms he actually shared with ...

On July 21, 2023, Tennessee announced a tough new rule for ex-felons seeking to exercise their voting rights. State Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins said that anyone with a felony conviction in another state whose voting rights were restored there may not vote in Tennessee without completing the restoration process ...

On September 8, 2022, Carl Harper, Jr. died in Florida’s Lee County Jail, a day after his arrest. A press statement five days later from the office of the county Sheriff (LCSO), Carmine Marceno, and a local NAACP official claimed there were no signs of trauma to the body. But ...

On November 14, 2023, the federal Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas approved a new mediator to oversee the dissolution of Corizon Health successor Tehum Care Services, Inc. Retired bankruptcy judge Christopher Sontchi replaced former Judge David Jones, who resigned after it was revealed that he shares a ...

An attack dog bites with enough force to puncture sheet metal. That same bite in human flesh is horrifyingly painful, leaving mental as well as physical trauma. Yet in the prison systems of eight states, attack-trained “K-9” dogs have been used on prisoners in the past six years, according to a ...

On July 12, 2023, the federal court for the Southern District of New York granted final approval to a settlement in a class-action lawsuit alleging detainees in New York City jails were forced to wait three hours or more after making bail before being released.

The suit was filed in ...

Five former officials of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association (PSCOA) were charged with theft in July 2023 after allegedly misappropriating union funds for personal expenses and conspiring to cover it up.

A financial crimes investigation by a state police organized crime detective and a financial crimes expert began in ...

by David M. Reutter

The federal court for the Middle District of Louisiana found on July 18, 2023, that a guard at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center (EHCC) violated a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment rights by failing to intervene when he was assaulted by another prisoner. After a bench trial, the Court ...

by David M. Reutter

On June 28, 2023, Florida prisoner Quincy Williams reached a settlement with the state and its Department of Corrections (DOC), which agreed to pay him $9,000 to resolve claims he was retaliated against—repeatedly—for exercising the right to grieve his conditions of confinement. The case illustrates the ...

by Matt Clarke

On June 14, 2023, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin held that a state prisoner must be given jail time credit on his sentence when the charge resulting in jail time was read in at his sentencing on another charge.

Michael K. Fermanich stole three trucks in Langlade ...

In June 2023, a judge in Oklahoma’s Sequoyah County overturned the murder conviction of Ricky Dority, 65, after the state prisoner spent his COVID-19 stimulus check to hire a private investigator, who then got a key witness to recant his trial testimony. After that, Dority walked out of Joseph Harp ...

On April 23, 2022, UCLA law professor Sharon Dolovich delivered the keynote address at a Prisoner Rights and Prison Conditions symposium. She cited the challenges faced by attorneys who pursue prisoners’ rights litigation—an area of law “stacked a mile high against plaintiffs”—including numerous and onerous provisions of the Prison Litigation ...

On June 19, 2023, the 158th anniversary of the “Juneteenth” enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation on the last Texas slavers, Sam Bushman, the owner of Liberty News Radio, used his show to broadcast his belief that the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a “thug.” What made the ...

New communications technology introduced in prisons and jails has raised questions as to how prisoners’ First Amendment rights are implicated. Such concerns were addressed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on June 23, 2023, in a lawsuit filed by Georgia prisoner Ralph H. Benning, after emails ...

by David M. Reutter

Observing that “Eighth Amendment claims for the deprivation of medical care are not analyzed body-part by body-part,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled on July 14, 2023, that a lower court erred in dismissing a Connecticut prisoner’s claim he was for years ...

As of June 30, 2023, an unnamed detainee at Montana’s Flathead County Jail (FCJ) had been held over nine months on a burglary charge, though she was not scheduled for trial. Instead the woman, who suffers from mental illness, was waiting for space to open at Montana State Hospital (MSH), ...

by David M. Reutter

On June 9, 2023, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia affirmed denial of defendant state prison officials’ motion to dismiss all but a negligent supervision and training claim that arose from a sexual and physical assault on a pretrial detainee at Potomac Highlands Regional ...

As often reported in PLN, the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e, imposes numerous requirements on incarcerated litigants—including exhaustion of administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit, by first filing a grievance and seeing it completely through a prison or jail’s system. But what if a prisoner can’t utilize ...

A June 2023 report by Loyola University College of Law found that annual deaths behind bars in Louisiana jumped over 18% to an average of 187.5 in the period 2020-21. That’s up from an average of 158.6 between 2015 and 2019.

Of 1,168 people who died behind bars over the ...

In July 2023, the U.S. unemployment rate stood at 3.6%, among the lowest levels seen in 60 years. With nearly two openings for everyone unemployed, all that most Americans need to get a job is to apply. Unless, of course, we’re talking about people out of prison a year or ...

by Matt Clarke

On July 14, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reinstated a claim brought by an Illinois prisoner who was severely burned when he tripped on a damaged kitchen floor and spilled a scalding hot bucket of water.

Willie Balle protested his transfer from ...

On November 24, 2023, Derek Chauvin, 47, the former Minneapolis cop convicted of murdering George Floyd—touching off nationwide protests against police brutality in summer 2020—was stabbed 22 times at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Tucson, Arizona, where he is serving dual state and federal sentences for the crime.

The ...

A month after a former guard pleaded guilty to sexually abusing her, a prisoner at Western New Mexico Corrections Facility (WNMCF) filed suit against the state Corrections Department on July 27, 2023, claiming she was also threatened with retaliation to keep her from reporting the attack. The prisoner, identified as ...

by Paul Wright

Over the years the saddest duty I have as PLN’s editor is noting the passing of our friends and supporters. As PLN gets older, we are entering our 34th year of publishing with this issue, it seems like more people are dying. On November 6, 2023, PLN’s ...

Eight employees were arrested at Georgia’s Clayton County Jail in 2023, including guard Jalen Clausel. He was taken in five days after Sheriff Levon Allen said the guard let four detainees assault a fifth on October 28, 2023. None of the detainees was named.

Earlier that same month, guard Desiree ...

A Mississippi Today article published on July 24, 2023, examined why the Magnolia State jails the mentally ill without charges for longer than any other state. As in every other state, Mississippians picked up by police who believe they require mental health services must go through civil commitment, which courts ...

On July 17, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a lower court’s dismissal of a prisoner’s suit filed in connection with the fire at Sing Sing Correctional Facility on April 18, 2011.

The fire began at 2:00 a.m. in the basement of Housing Block B, ...

Maine became the latest state to end prison gerrymandering on June 30, 2023, when Gov. Janet Mills (D) signed LD 1704/HP 1093 into law and joined 16 other states to count prisoners at their home address instead of the prison where they are incarcerated.

The Census Bureau created the problem ...

On July 18, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a district court’s grant of summary judgment to jailers who tasered a detainee suffering an epileptic seizure at the Pasadena city lockup in suburban Houston. Jamal Ali Shaw, 32, died at a hospital on March 29, ...

by David M. Reutter

In June 8, 2023, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia held that the Medical Professional Liability Act (MPLA), W. Va. Code §§ 55-7B-1 to 12, does not apply to the state Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR).

Before the court was a motion by DCR ...

by Matt Clarke

On June 6, 2023, Judge Cristina D. Silva of the federal court for the District of Nevada renewed a preliminary injunction she issued on March 3, 2023, ordering state prison officials to provide prisoner Jess Aaron Ross “at least seven hours of access to outdoor exercise per ...

“Very weighty interests are at stake when a state institutes a program of civil commitment for sex offenders who, though never tried for or convicted of a crime, are found too dangerous for release.” So began a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on July ...

by David M. Reutter

On July 31, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected an argument by the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) that a state prisoner’s suit should be dismissed because he was required to file a Petition to Initiate Rulemaking before proceeding to court. ...

Alabama: On November 1, 2023, charges were dismissed against former Mobile County Metro Jail guard Kimberly Henderson, 32. WPMI in Mobile reported that a judge found not enough probable cause to send the case to a grand jury. As PLN reported, Henderson was accused of sneaking a cellphone into ...