In June 2010, Melanie Dawn Williams, who had been arrested by officers after allegedly running a red light on her way to the St. Vincent’s Medical Center emergency room in Jacksonville, Florida when she was in premature labor, accepted a settlement in her lawsuit instead of going to trial.
Williams ...
A long-running lawsuit against the City of Long Beach, California for Thomas Goldstein’s wrongful murder conviction was settled in June 2010 for $7.95 million.
After serving 24 years in prison following his 1980 conviction, Goldstein was finally released based on new evidence that the police had coached the lone eyewitness ...
The City of New York will pay $9.9 million to a man who was wrongfully accused, arrested, convicted and imprisoned as the result of actions by disgraced former New York City police detective Louis J. Eppolito, who is now serving a life sentence plus 100 years for mob-related activities.
In ...
by Matt Clarke
On March 16, 2010, New York City agreed to settle a long-standing class-action lawsuit challenging the strip search policy used in the city’s jails. The settlement was for over $33 million, which included an estimated $3 million in attorney fees.
The suit originated as a class-action civil ...
Loaded on
Jan. 15, 2011
published in Verdict1
January, 2011, page 18
On January 28, 2010, California prisoner Garrison S. Johnson, proceeding pro se, signed a settlement agreement to resolve a federal lawsuit he had filed pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming violations of his civil rights by officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
Johnson had brought ...
The privately-operated Chad Youth Enhancement Center (Chad) in Ashland City, Tennessee paid $10.5 million to settle a lawsuit involving a juvenile’s death. The youth, Omega “Manny” Leach, 17, died from asphyxiation caused by a guard’s chokehold on June 2, 2007.
A surveillance camera caught what attorneys for Leach’s estate called ...
by Matt Clarke
On May 3, 2010, a U.S. District Court in Washington State held it was unconstitutional to shackle a prisoner in labor.
Cassandra Brawley, 30, was a Washington state prisoner. In 2006 she was arrested for second degree theft and received a fourteen-month prison sentence. She was five ...
A $1.5 million settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit on behalf of approximately 4,000 former prisoners of Building 4 of Massachusetts’ Suffolk County House of Correction.
The complaint alleged Eighth Amendment violations for cruel and unusual punishment. When it was built, Building 4 lacked toilets or sinks ...
by David M. Reutter
A lawsuit that claimed insufficient suicide prevention procedures and staff training at New Mexico’s Santa Fe County Adult Detention Facility (SFCADF) resulted in a woman’s suicide attempt has been settled for $1.8 million.
When 23-year-old Nanette Romero was arrested on a minor offense and placed in ...
$4 Million Settlement in R&B Singer’s Death from Drug Withdrawal in Ohio Jail for Failure to Pay Child Support
A $4 million settlement has been reached in a lawsuit that claimed the policies of Ohio’s Cuyahoga County Jail (CCJ) and the medical negligence of its contractor, Midwest Medical Staffing Inc., ...