A $50,000 settlement was reached in an unlawful imprisonment suit filed against the Washington State Department of Corrections (WDOC).

On March 31, 1992, Jeffrey Westfall pled guilty to one count attempted second-degree rape and two counts of residential burglary and was sentenced to 128 months. At the time of sentencing ...

Steven Larson sued the CDOC alleging constitutional violations, false imprisonment, and negligence after he was unlawfully held for 47 days.

In 2007, Larson violated the conditions of his parole. At the revocation hearing, Larson received a firm parole discharge date of February 14, 2007. Larson showed CDOC officials paperwork reflecting ...

Former Hawaii prisoner Wade T. Itagaki, who was held at the Oahu Community Correctional Center in Honolulu for 83 days after his sentence expired on Sept. 5, 2006, was awarded $83,000 by a federal jury in February 2011.

When prison officials realized their mistake, Itagaki, a homeless veteran, was quickly ...

The U.S. Department of Justice agreed in April 2011 to pay almost $1.9 million to two former prisoners wrongfully convicted of murder, who spent a combined 49 years in prison for a District of Columbia homicide.

Joseph Wayne Eastridge and Joseph Nick Sousa, along with two co-defendants, were convicted in ...

The City of Philadelphia has agreed to pay $85,000 to a man who was wrongfully arrested and imprisoned for a year for a crime he didn’t commit.

When Eugene Robinson saw his photo in the Week’s Most Wanted section of the Philadelphia Daily News on August 4, 2008, he later ...

A paperwork error was blamed for a schizophrenic and bipolar woman being held in Louisiana jails for eight months even though the charges against her were dropped and she had not been appointed an attorney. Louisiana state law requires that prisoners be released if they are not appointed an attorney within 72 hours.

Melissa E. Poche, 55, was homeless when she was arrested in July 2009 on four misdemeanors. Deciding the arrest was punishment enough, the District Attorney’s office dropped the charges; the resulting paperwork, however, showed that only one charge had been dropped.

“Our intent was not to file formal charges against her,” said District Attorney Hillar Moore. “That’s what we thought we did, but apparently we didn’t.”

As a result, Poche was lost in the system. The Baton Rouge jail sent her to the East Carroll Parish jail. When that jail became overcrowded, she was sent back to Baton Rouge. Because she had no money she was unable to make bond.

Meanwhile, Poche’s family was looking for her and even filed a missing person report. They finally located her by running an Internet search that found her name on a jail population list. Their inquiries resulted in Poche ...

On September 8, 2010, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held the “valid assertion of the state secrets privilege” warranted dismissal of a lawsuit filed by suspects apprehended as part of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program.

The suit was filed under the Alien Tort Statute by Binyam Mohamed and four other foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. Once they were apprehended, they were transferred in secret to foreign countries for detention and interrogation by U.S. or foreign officials. The rendition program allowed agents of the U.S. government “to employ interrogation methods that would [otherwise have been] prohibited under federal or international law.”

The plaintiffs were represented by the ACLU. “American corporations should not be profiting from a CIA rendition program that is unlawful and contrary to core American values,” stated ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero. “Corporations that choose to participate in such activity can and should be held legally accountable.”

The five plaintiffs sued Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., a Boeing subsidiary and CIA contractor, alleging the company had actual or constructive knowledge that its planes were being used to facilitate “forced disappearance.” According to the plaintiffs, Jeppesen’s “flights involved the transportation of terror suspects pursuant to the extraordinary ...

by Derek Gilna and Brandon Sample

In a March 29, 2011 five-to-four decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a former Louisiana prisoner who filed a § 1983 suit against Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry F. Connick, Sr., based upon admitted Brady errors. The Supreme Court’s decision reversed a jury award of $14 million to John Thompson, who had served 18 years in prison – including 14 on death row.

Thompson claimed that during his prosecution for attempted armed robbery, prosecutors failed to disclose evidence of his innocence as required under Brady. Thompson was found guilty on the armed robbery charge; he was later tried and convicted of murder stemming from an unrelated incident, and sentenced to death based on his tainted armed robbery conviction. Prosecutors later admitted that they failed to disclose the existence of a swatch of the robbery victim’s pants stained with the robber’s blood, which was type B.

According to the Supreme Court’s opinion, “there is no evidence that the prosecutors ever had Thompson’s blood tested or that they knew what his blood type was.”

One month before his scheduled execution, Thompson’s investigator discovered the undisclosed evidence from his armed robbery trial, and as a result ...

by David M. Reutter

A “clean hands” provision in a Florida law designed to compensate wrongfully convicted prisoners is preventing most of those prisoners from receiving compensation. Of 13 men cleared by DNA evidence in Florida, only one has qualified for compensation while two eventually received payments through legislative claim bills.

The law, passed in 2008, entitles those who were wrongfully convicted to receive $50,000 for each year they were imprisoned plus free state college tuition. However, the “clean hands” language prohibits the state from paying anyone who has a prior felony conviction. [See: PLN, Sept. 2010, p.27].

The clean hands provision is “just crazy,” according to John Blue, a former Florida appellate judge who failed in his attempts to get the legislature to remove the restriction.

“It’s a nice bill. It looks good on paper but it eliminates at least 90 percent of the [wrongfully convicted] people,” said Barbara Heyer, an attorney who represents Anthony Caravella, who was cleared of murder by DNA testing. Caravella has been unable to collect compensation due to a juvenile record that “no one seems to be able to produce.”

Heyer and other lawyers are seeking to sue police officers who made arrests in ...

On April 22, 2010, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that a Pennsylvania prison records officer was entitled to qualified immunity for a prisoner allegedly being confined 10 months beyond his maximum term of imprisonment.

On August 11, 1992, Miguel Montanez was sentenced to 60 months in prison with a 30-month minimum. Under Pennsylvania law a prisoner may be paroled after expiration of the minimum sentence. Montanez’s sentence began on July 23, 1992 and was to expire on July 23, 1997. However, soon after his minimum sentence expired, the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (Board) paroled Montanez on January 28, 1995.

Montanez was arrested on numerous state sex offenses on February 9, 1996. He was found guilty of those charges and on April 30, 1996 was again sentenced to a 60-month maximum with a 30-month minimum. He appealed his conviction on May 24, 1996.
On July 29, 1996, the Board found Montanez to be a convicted and technical parole violator. It imposed a 36-month sanction for the new crime and a concurrent 6-month sanction for a technical violation.

Montanez finally pleaded guilty to the 1996 criminal charges on June 9, 1997 and was again sentenced to 60 months ...