Sixth Circuit Hears Debate Over Rewarding Inmate Vasectomies
The constitutionality of a discontinued Tennessee county policy that gave inmates a jail-time credit if they had a vasectomy was debated before a Sixth Circuit panel Tuesday.
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Lawsuit Over Birth in Milwaukee Jail Headed to Trial
A federal judge ruled Friday that a jury will hear a case against a nurse and correctional officer working at the Milwaukee County Jail on the night an inmate claims she was forced to give birth in her cell without any medical care, before being shackled during a week of postpartum treatment.
Read moreOvercrowded Ohio Jails at Breaking Point, Inmates Say
A class of inmates sued Ohio jail officials Thursday claiming chronic overcrowding and understaffing, lack of access to safe drinking water and food, and other inhumane conditions they say have led to a spike in deaths and assaults.
Read moreAnkle Monitor Racketeering Case Barely Advances
Gutting a federal class action accusing Alameda County and a private contractor of charging inmates on pre-trial detention exorbitant daily fees for ankle monitors, a federal judge on Friday dropped the county from the case and advanced just one racketeering claim.
Read moreWisconsin Justices Hear Dispute Over Time Served
The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case hinging on whether a prisoner is entitled to a sentence credit for time he spent outside of jail after he was accidentally released early during a transfer between facilities.
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 moreInmates Contest Plan for Prison Above Kentucky Mine
A $444 million plan to build a new federal prison in a sensitive region of Appalachia ravaged by coal-mining operations drew a lawsuit Monday from 21 inmates.
Read moreAttorney Contradiction Gets Death-Row Inmate New Trial
A Texas appeals court granted a new trial Wednesday for a death-row inmate because his attorneys disregarded his claims of innocence and, convinced he was delusional, told a jury he had killed his wife and mother-in-law.
Read moreMentally Ill Ex-Prisoner Says Solitary Was Torture
A mentally ill man imprisoned after stealing $1 and a hat claims in a civil rights lawsuit that Illinois prison officials tortured him by putting him in solitary confinement for two decades, where he self-mutilated himself, including slicing off his testicle and hanging it on his cell door.
Read moreColorado Inmates Get Help Exercising Their Right to Vote
On the last day of his misdemeanor sentence at the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center in downtown Denver, 26-year-old Brian M. registered to vote.
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 moreReligious Freedom
A Minnesota man filed a federal class action claiming he was forced to attend a religious lecture while he was an inmate in the Dakota County jail and faced punishment if he tried to “escape.”
Read moreTexas Can Keep Supplier of Execution Drug Secret
To ensure Texas can keep executing prisoners, it does not have to reveal the supplier of its lethal injection drug to a group of Arkansas death-row inmates, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Read moreSoCal County Settles Bias Claims by Gay & Trans Inmates
A group of gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals who were systematically discriminated against and mistreated while incarcerated at a Southern California jail reached a deal Wednesday that will compel jail officials to enforce a zero-tolerance policy on discrimination.
Read moreInmate Advocates Push Georgia on Solitary-Confinement Harms
Two years into its legal fight over Georgia prison inmates who suffer for years in solitary confinement, the Southern Center for Human Rights laid out an expert’s findings about the practice in a letter to the state.
Read moreJournalists Ask Panel to Revive Claims Over Prison Riot
Several members of the news media, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, argued before the Sixth Circuit on Thursday in hopes of reviving their constitutional claims against the Ohio Department of Correction, which blocked interviews with inmates involved in the 1993 Lucasville prison riot for over 20 years.
Read moreBodies Unearthed in Texas Were Likely Black Laborers
A Texas school district has stumbled on the state’s post-Civil War history of leasing black prisoners to plantation owners, as its construction project turned up what archaeologists believe are the bones of prisoners-for-hire in an unmarked cemetery.
Read moreClaiming Racism, Texas Inmate Asks Judge to Halt Execution
A black death-row inmate set to die Tuesday night claims that racism led the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to vote against sparing his life, and now a federal judge is considering whether to postpone the execution.
Read moreConnecticut Prison Gerrymandering Suit Is First of Its Kind
Connecticut was hit with a federal complaint Thursday over its policy of counting prisoners as constituents in the lightly populated, rural areas where they are incarcerated.
Read moreCook County Must Face Claims Over Inmates’ Lewd Behavior
A federal judge refused to dismiss lawsuits from female public defenders and correctional officers who claim Cook County, Illinois, inmates have been exposing themselves and masturbating in front of them, a problem they say was exacerbated by a program rewarding detainees with pizza for not engaging in such behavior.
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