Eighth Amendment
Prisoner Blinded by Cellmate Fights to Revive Civil Rights Case
A Florida prisoner asked an 11th Circuit panel Thursday to reinstate his lawsuit claiming that prison officials violated his civil rights when they put him in a cell with an inmate who later stabbed him in the eye with scissors while he was asleep.
Read moreJail Disease Screening
A federal court in Tennessee ruled against a group of inmates – who claim they contracted tuberculosis while housed at the jail – in their civil rights suit against the county relating to its disease-detection screening procedures. The inmates failed to establish a violation of their Eighth Amendment rights.
Read moreBail Reform
The Nashville Community Bail Fund sued the Clerk of the Davidson County (Tenn.) Criminal Court in federal court, claiming he violated the Eighth Amendment by exploiting cash bail as a means of exacting payment for fines and fees.
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Fifth Circuit Takes Up Voting Rights for Mississippi Felons
The Fifth Circuit heard arguments Tuesday in a challenge to a Mississippi law that permanently blocks certain felons from voting unless they can get their rights restored through a process their attorney says is basically nonexistent.
Read moreDeath Penalty
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday changed the death sentence of a convicted murderer to life in prison because he is intellectually disabled.
Read moreForfeiture
Remanding in a split ruling, the Indiana Supreme Court found that Indiana’s seizure of a man’s car that was only peripherally involved in a drug deal may have been a grossly disproportionate fine, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
Read moreCapital Punishment
A federal judge denied a habeas petition from an Alabama inmate on death row, finding that his IQ of 76 does not show he is intellectually disabled, so he can be executed without violating the Eighth Amendment.
Read moreMurder
The Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded a sentence of life in prison without parole for Riley Briones Jr., who was 17 when he had a role in a robbery that resulted in murder.
Read moreAccused 9/11 Plotter Cites Torture to Nix Capital Trial
No closer after nearly two decades to mounting a trial against accused 9/11 plotter Ammar al-Baluchi, prosecutors told a federal judge Wednesday that the record of torture in the case has no bearing on whether they can seek the death penalty.
Read moreDeath-Row Inmate With Dementia Prevails at High Court
A narrow Supreme Court majority ordered new proceedings Wednesday in the case of an Alabama man with dementia who no longer remembers committing the murder that landed him on death row.
Read moreJustices Rule Ban on Excessive Fines Applies to States
(CN) – Finding against Indiana’s seizure of a convicted drug dealer’s Land Rover, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that
Read morePrison Health Care
The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed and remanded in part a civil rights class action alleging cruel and unusual punishment in Arizona prisons through violations of a settlement intended to address inadequate health care.
Read moreReport Finds Waning Support for Death Penalty
Declining public support for the death penalty and reduced rates of executions indicate there is a “climate change” involving capital punishment, which could lead to an abolition of the practice in the United States, the director of the Death Penalty Information Center said in an interview, touting the release Friday of his group’s annual year-end report.
Read moreJuveniles Housed With Adults Bring Claims to Sixth Circuit
A class of former and current juvenile inmates housed with adults who say they are exposed to an increased risk of sexual and physical assaults argued before the Sixth Circuit on Thursday to revive their civil rights claims.
Read moreJustices Greet Excessive-Fines Case With Open Arms
The Supreme Court appeared eager Wednesday to make states comply with the constitutional bar against excessive fines, with some justices casting the decision as all but inevitable.
Read moreDeath-Row Inmates Challenge Tennessee’s Execution Protocol
Attorneys for 27 inmates on death row told the Tennessee Supreme Court on Wednesday there are better, and constitutional, ways to kill their clients than the three-drug lethal-injection protocol the state has adopted.
Read moreACLU Sues Over Methadone Access for Inmates
Denial of methadone to prison inmates with opioid addictions constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, the ACLU claimed in federal court Wednesday.
Read more20 Years in Solitary
The 10th Circuit affirmed summary judgment of qualified immunity for Kansas prison officials who kept Richard Grissom in solitary confinement for nearly 20 years, “because at the time of Grissom’s confinement there was no clearly established law that would have alerted them that his asserted constitutional rights were being violated.”
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