Three U.S. correctional officers have died from the coronavirus and union leaders called on governors Friday to do more to protect prison staff at risk from their close contact with inmates.
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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 moreA federal court in Virginia granted the Human Rights Defense Center’s motion for a permanent injunction ensuring that prisoners have access to the publications that are mailed to them, “subject to a reasonable inspection to ensure that any such publication does not present a threat to a legitimate penological interest.”
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Amid escalating fears that Covid-19 will spread like wildfire across the U.S. prison system, a top federal judge conceded Tuesday that the risk is higher for inmates penned in close quarters.
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The Supreme Court decided Monday not to hear a challenge to limits on postconviction relief for prisoners, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the court should settle a circuit split the next time a similar case comes before it.
Read moreThe Second Circuit on Friday revived a lawsuit by public defenders in Brooklyn over restricted access to their imprisoned clients.
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As the United States grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, there is concern not only for the elderly but for another vulnerable population: prisoners.
Read moreThe 11th Circuit ruled that an inmate’s claims against the Florida Department of Corrections’ now-repealed “freeze frame” policy limiting transgender inmates to the medical treatments they were receiving when they were taken into custody are moot. The circuit court also found the department did not violate the Eighth Amendment when it refused the inmate’s request to wear long hair, makeup and women’s undergarments.
Read moreA mother sued officials at California State Prison, Corcoran, in federal court, claiming they violated their own rules by placing her son in a cell with an inmate who already had tried to murder a fellow inmate, and he decapitated her son and “was found wearing a necklace made of (his) body parts.”
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A Sixth Circuit panel on Tuesday decertified a class of Ohio voters incarcerated shortly before Election Day and ruled the state is allowed to handle their absentee ballots differently than those received from hospital-bound voters.
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Chinese citizens who were imprisoned for online political speech against their government can proceed with a lawsuit against Yahoo claiming a trust fund meant to help them was a sham, the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday.
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The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report Wednesday that condemned how state and federal prisons treat female inmates, saying a broad range of disparities in areas from medical care to discipline show that correctional facilities are not designed for or tailored to women’s needs.
Read moreThe mother of a man who died after his appendix ruptured while he was incarcerated may pursue her wrongful death and other claims against certain Oklahoma Department of Corrections employees, a federal court in the state ruled. The suit alleges the man “suffered days of prolonged pain” due to a delay in medical treatment.
Read moreJane Doe claims in federal court that Grundy County, Tenn., sheriff’s Officer Mark Nunley — who has been fired — sexually assaulted her repeatedly while she was an inmate.
Read moreThe guardian of Nicholas Feliciano sued New York City, claiming guards at Rikers Island prison watched for seven minutes as he tried to commit suicide, catastrophically injuring himself, in New York County Supreme Court.
Read moreA 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.
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A year after an electrical fire cut off power and forced a Brooklyn detention center into lockdown, the Second Circuit appeared inclined Tuesday to let the parties mediate a suit over access to public defenders.
Read moreFourteen inmates at Parchman Prison filed a federal class action against the Mississippi Department of Prisons for the “serious harm in the form of prison violence, and … the squalid conditions in which they are forced to live,” which led to nine deaths already this year at Parchman.
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