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Articles in Verdict1

GEO Buys CSC After Settling $38.8 Million Judgment in Texas Boot Camp Death

Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) has settled a $38 million judgment that held the company responsible for the 2000 death of Bryan Dale Alexander, an 18 year old prisoner at a Texas boot camp. The terms are confidential, but according to an online article accessed February 6, 2006, CSC paid $2.7 ...

New York Brutality Settlement Affecting Twenty Two Prisoners, Fourteen Units Settles for $2.2 Millio

New York Brutality Settlement Affecting Twenty Two Prisoners, Fourteen Units Settles for $2.2 Million

by Gary Hunter

Settlement of a 4-year-old lawsuit, between brutalized prisoners and the guards who attacked them, was achieved on February 17, 2006. Most notable was the $2.2 million in damages that will be divided between ...

Connecticuts Mistreatment of Mentally Ill Prisoners and Detainees Enjoined

Connecticuts Mistreatment of Mentally Ill Prisoners and Detainees Enjoined

by John E. Dannenberg

The Connecticut Department of Corrections (CDOC) entered into a settlement agreement in September 2005 that specified extensive changes to its policies for confining and treating mentally ill prisoners and detainees. In response to a 42 U.S.C. § ...

California DOC Settles Racially Determinative Housing Suit

by John E. Dannenberg


Upon remand from the U.S. Supreme Court (Johnson v. California, 125 S.Ct. 1141 (2005)), the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) entered into a settlement agreement with plaintiff prisoner Garrison Johnson wherein CDCR agreed to end using race as the sole determinative criterion in double-celling ...

Los Angeles County Pays $900,000 to Parents of Murdered Informant in Jail

The County of Los Angeles (L.A.) agreed to pay $700,000 to the mother, and $200,000 to the father, of a 20 year old county jail prisoner murdered in his cell by a free-roaming prisoner against whom he had just testified in a murder trial.

Raul Tinajero, a car thief, had ...

Michigan Jail's Disproportionate Treatment of Women Results in $855,000 Settlement Agreement

A Michigan federal district court has approved a settlement awarding $855,000 in a class action alleging the conditions of confinement for women at the Livingston County Jail were disproportionate to that of men held at the jail. The suit also involved privacy concerns.

The suit was brought initially filed by ...

New York City Jail Strip Search Suit Settles For $30 Million

by John E. Dannenberg

On April 27, 2005, the City of New York agreed to settle a federal court class action 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights suit with 57,634 past misdemeanant prisoners at its city jails, paying $750 to each person unlawfully strip-searched upon their post-arraignment jail admission in ...

York County, Maine, Settles Class Action Strip-Search Suit for $3,300,000

In April 2005, York County, Maine, agreed to settle for $3,300,000 a class action lawsuit alleging the county maintained an unconstitutional policy of strip-searching all pre-arraignment detainees in the York County Jail regardless of the charge against them.

Plaintiffs Michele Nilsen end Michael Goodrich contended that upon being placed in ...

New York Employees Families Settle Attica Riot Claims for $12 Million

The State of New York has reached a $12 million settlement with the Forgotten Victims of Attica, a group of surviving state employees and relatives of 11 guards killed during the 1971 uprising at the Attica Correctional Facility.

Under a proposal by Governor George E. Pataki, the Forgotten Victims of ...

Illinois Jail Conditions Suit Nets $150,000 Attorney Fee Award

An Illinois Federal District Court has awarded attorneys representing prisoners at the Winnebago County Jail (WCJ) $150,000 in attorney fees and costs. This class action suit alleged the conditions at WCJ were unconstitutionally deficient in numerous respects.

The suit alleged system-wide problems of overcrowding, double and triple bunking of prisoner's, ...