by Matt Clarke

On December 20, 2007, an Illinois federal jury awarded a record amount in a civil rights case for false arrest – $15.5 million. The damage award was against the sheriff of Will County, Illinois and four of his deputies. Prior to trial, the former state attorney, forensic ...

$5,775 Awarded For 104 Days of Over-Incarceration in Ohio Prison

The Ohio Court of Claims has awarded a former Ohio prisoner $5,775 for 104 days of over-incarceration.

Jasen Thomson was confined at the Marion Correctional Institution for 104 days beyond his lawful confinement. Thomson sued the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation ...

by Matt Clarke

On April 22, 2008, Houston, Texas, federal judge Lynn Hughes acquitted former Texas prison chief James “Andy” Collins, 57, and former president and CEO of VitaPro Foods Yank Barry of federal charges for bribery, money laundering, conspiracy and misuse of a social security number. This ended the unsavory tale of alleged corruption in a $33 million sweetheart deal which had Texas paying more for the Canadian-made soy-based meat substitute than it did for Texas-raised beef and Texas prisoners being forced to consume the inedible product which allegedly caused numerous medical problems, including outbreaks of boils and vomiting.

Hughes delayed the jury trial, originally begun in August 2000, just before then Texas governor George Bush’s first presidential election, claiming he was shocked that the prosecution’s main witness, Patrick Graham, was a convicted felon. Graham’s conviction stemmed from prison procurement and construction corruption in his company, The M-Group, which employed Collins in 1996. In August 2001, the trial recommenced and the jury convicted Collins and Barry, but Hughes refused to sentence them. Instead, he decried problems with the court reporter’s transcription and granted continuance after continuance while allowing Collins and Barry to travel freely while on bond--even outside the ...

The plaintiff was awarded $45,000 in compensatory and punitive damages against federal customs inspectors for unlawful detention at an airport on suspicion of drug smuggling.

The plaintiff lacks standing to seek injunctive relief since she is not likely to pass through the San Francisco airport again.

The plaintiff also sought ...

The plaintiff turned himself in at the county jail after he learned that a warrant had been issued because he missed a court appearance concerning child support arrearages. The sheriff's office misfiled his records and kept him for 57 days despite his daily complaints. (State law requires that persons arrested under these circumstances be immediately taken before the court.) Jail staff repeatedly told him that he was on the "will call" list but no date had been set. They refused to accept written complaints from him.

At 569: "... [T]his case plays out on the yielding natural grass of substantive due process rather than the stiff astroturf of specific constitutional rights." The Fourth Amendment usually governs up to a judicial determination of probable cause, but the plaintiff was arrested on a bench warrant so that determination had already been made. The Eighth Amendment does not apply to the unconvicted. The plaintiff's prolonged detention over his protests without a court appearance violated his substantive due process rights. The "shocks the conscience" test applies, but it can be met by a showing of deliberate indifference. Outside the Eighth Amendment context, the standard for deliberate indifference is closer to tort recklessness: "conscious disregard ...

Terry Sybil, a King County, Washington prisoner, served 10 days in the county jail on a bench warrant, but the warrant wasn't recalled. He was later arrested and held for 27 1/2 hours on the same warrant and sued in state court for false imprisonment. On April 17, 1992, after ...

by Matt Clarke

Sharon Keller, 54, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, has come under sharp criticism for refusing to keep the court open twenty minutes past its usual closing time to permit a late filing.
The late filing request was to allow attorneys for a death-sentenced prisoner to submit an appeal based upon a decision issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on the same day their client was scheduled for execution.

Keller’s staunch, some say over-the-top, support of the death penalty has earned her the nickname “Killer Keller.” She has called the failure to execute convicted murderers “a human rights violation.”

At 10:00am on September 25, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would review a challenge to the “triple cocktail” method of lethal injection raised by two death row prisoners in Kentucky. Texas uses the same method of execution.

Texas prisoner Michael Wayne Richard, 48, was scheduled to be put to death that same day. Working at break-neck speed, David Dow, a University of Houston professor and expert in capital murder law, prepared a 107-page ap-peal in Richard’s case. Dow was to e-mail the appeal to the Texas Defender Service in Austin, which in turn ...

An FBI informant is suing the Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC) for holding him 110 days past his release date.

In the late 1970s, Jack Rowlands gained notoriety by planting a bomb at Portland International Airport, in a failed attempt to extort $200,000. All he got was a federal prison sentence.

In 2002, Rowlands pleaded guilty to attempted sexual abuse in Oregon and was sentenced to probation. In 2005, however, he violated his probation ands was sentenced to ODOC custody. He claims he should have been released August 11, 2006, but ODOC held him until November 29, 2006.

Rowlands recently made repeated claims that he knew where a Portland police officer dumped a body in 1978. In response to his claims Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer and Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk asked the FBI to investigate. No evidence was found to support Rowland’s claims.

On October 8, 2007, Rowlands, 67, sued ODOC in state court for false imprisonment. He alleges ODOC held him 110 days too long because it failed to credit him with time served in the county jail. He seeks at least $100,000 for “anxiety, loss of companionship with his family, humiliation, mental anguish and depression.” ...

by John E. Dannenberg

Three recent California court decisions interpreting California’s sentencing laws have spawned a need for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to recalculate the release dates of an estimated 33,000 current prisoners. It is unknown how many of the 33,000 will actually gain earlier release as a result. The pressure to perform the calculations came from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 1000, which filed a petition for writ of mandate commanding CDCR to perform these calculations. SEIU’s motive is to require CDCR to hire more SEIU union record clerks to do the auditing, but its pleadings are couched sympathetically in taxpayer cost savings from reduced prison overcrowding when overincarcerated prisoners are released.

The first court case, In re Phelon, 132 Cal.App.4th 1214 (2005) affected the calculation of behavioral credits for prisoners serving composite terms for both violent and nonviolent crimes (which have different credit earning rates). Next, In re Reeves, 35 Cal.4th 765 (2005) restored the more favorable earned credits of non-violent offenders who also had stayed sentences for violent offenses, but which CDCR had arbitrarily taxed at the less generous violent offense rate. Finally, In re Tate, 135 Cal.App.4th 756 (2006) dealt ...

The plaintiff, a convicted sex offender, was not released until three months after his conditional release date because his residence was not approved until then. The requirements for approval were formalized only one day before his CR date.

Due process for the imposition of conditions for conditional release include "notice that he would not be released without an approved residence, an explanation of why this special condition was being imposed, and an opportunity to dispute the grounds for application of the special condition." The plaintiff received this process, since he was told two months before release that he had to propose possible residences. The court is satisfied that he knew why the requirement was imposed and had ample opportunity to contest its application, since it was explained to him two months before the CR date. The failure to formalize these requirements until a day before the CR date did not deny due process in light of the notice actually given and efforts made by the Division of Parole to help the plaintiff find an approved residence. See: Doe v. Simon, 221 F.3d 137 (2nd Cir. 2000).