The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to resolve a split amount the circuit courts on the question of when an inmate has a right to file an appeal of his conviction despite the fact his plea agreement specifically waives that right.
Read moreSonoma County, California, will pay $1.7 million to settle inmate torture torture claims.
Read moreA divided Texas appeals court reaffirmed Wednesday its denial of an inmate’s petition to get off death row, finding he is not too intellectually disabled to be executed as suggested by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Read moreThe Supreme Court ruled Monday that a defendant who takes a plea deal can get a lighter sentence if guidelines are changed later, but those who were sentenced based on mandatory minimums and their assistance to the government are not eligible for sentencing reductions if the guidelines are lowered.
Read moreTwo liberal justices dissented Monday from the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear a case involving mitigating evidence that a Texas death-row inmate has fetal alcohol syndrome, saying jurors did not have a complete picture of his character.
Read moreMissouri lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that bars corrections officers from shackling pregnant prisoners through their third trimester, during labor and two days after delivery, and the measure will now go to embattled Governor Eric Greitens.
Read moreIn an expansion of inmate rights, the Second Circuit ruled Wednesday that the First Amendment rights protects speech and, in some cases, silence.
Read morePutting prison officials on notice throughout the sunbaked South, a federal judge on Tuesday approved a class-action settlement requiring Texas to install air conditioning in a state prison near Houston.
Read moreA South Florida judge stepped down from the bench Monday, facing backlash for scolding an infirm inmate and ignoring her plea for medical treatment during a bond hearing a few days before the inmate’s death.
Read moreThe 11th Circuit on Wednesday affirmed that a nonprofit’s owner whose bogus charity collected inmates’ personal information to file fake tax returns must serve out his sentence of 23 years and one month.
Read moreA federal judge in Michigan struck down a state law that took away good-behavior credits for inmates who were sentenced to life in prison as minors, before being resentenced to lengthy terms after the U.S. Supreme Court found life without parole unconstitutional for juveniles.
Read moreOrange County, California, law enforcement officials ran a “secret jailhouse informant operation” in violation of state and federal laws, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Read moreMilwaukee County prosecutors on Wednesday charged a jail health care contractor with falsifying records about the dehydration death of an inmate who was deprived of water for seven days.
Read moreIn a state with the country’s lowest literacy rates and largest prison populations, lawmakers and nonprofit workers gathered at an auction block in downtown Atlanta last week to change that narrative.
Read moreA divided Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a federal statute governing how much prevailing prisoners must pay their lawyers is unambiguous, and that as a result, 25 percent of their judgment must be used to cover attorney’s fees before defendants have to pick up any of the cost.
Read more