On November 12, 2009, Canyon County, Idaho agreed to settle a federal class-action suit against the Canyon County Jail (CCJ) that raised a myriad of claims related to unconstitutional conditions.
Filed in March 2009 by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of prisoners at the jail, the lawsuit ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Verdict1
July, 2010, page 30
Prison Health Services (PHS), a private for-profit company that provides medical care to prisoners, has agreed to pay $1.5 million to the family of a man who died at a Virginia jail, with the sheriff’s office paying another $100,000.
Joseph Combs, 57, a Vietnam veteran who suffered from bipolar disorder, ...
On June 7, 2010, Prison Legal News announced that it had settled a federal censorship suit against Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison company.
PLN filed the lawsuit in September 2009, claiming that CCA’s Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona only allowed prisoners to order books ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 7, 2009, three private prison guards were convicted of charges involving the unjustified beating of a New York prisoner in 2007. [See: PLN, Sept. 2009, p.50; July 2009, p.50]. A fourth guard was convicted of related charges in January 2010.
Rex Egurido, 28, a Nigerian ...
Loaded on
July 15, 2010
published in Verdict1
July, 2010, page 41
A woman who was sexually assaulted at a jail in Monroe County, Wisconsin has received $750,000 as part of a settlement in a federal civil rights case.
While awaiting trial on charges of felony battery of a police officer, Sherry Calhoun was repeatedly forced to perform oral sex on Lt. ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2010
published in Verdict1
June, 2010, page 18
The City of Scottsdale, Arizona paid $315,000 to settle a lawsuit claiming that a police officer illegally strip searched a citizen after responding to a 911 call.
When Heather Tonarelli, 19, and her friend Chris Smith heard loud knocks on Tonarelli’s apartment door at around 3:00 p.m. on June 15, ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2010
published in Verdict1
June, 2010, page 27
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) paid $2,750 to settle a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment claim for denial of exercise. The May 7, 2008 settlement came in a lawsuit filed by prisoner Terrell Curry.
In his third amended complaint, Curry alleged that seven guards at Salinas Valley State Prison ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2010
published in Verdict1
June, 2010, page 32
On April 22, 2010, Prison Legal News announced that it had settled a First Amendment censorship suit against Fulton County, Georgia and former Fulton County Sheriff Myron Freeman.
The lawsuit, filed by PLN in October 2007, claimed that prisoners at the Fulton County Jail were not allowed to receive subscriptions ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2010
published in Verdict1
June, 2010, page 33
On July 14, 2009, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a prisoner who was beaten by guards.
On or about April 11, 2006, while being escorted to the Special Housing Unit (SHU) for allegedly assaulting a BOP employee, Kenneth Howard was tripped and ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2010
published in Verdict1
June, 2010, page 36
The City of New York paid $60,000 to settle a prisoner’s civil rights action. The case was succinctly defined as an incident where New York Department of Corrections (NY DOC) Captain Reginald Patterson not only “gratuitously punched an inmate, but also … generated an elaborate ruse to cover it up.” ...