Award-winning prison journalist and civil rights figure Wilbert Rideau, once described as “the most rehabilitated prisoner in America,” is free after spending more than four decades behind bars. Ironically, Rideau’s freedom came not from being exonerated, but from being found guilty a fourth time.

Rideau was a 19-year-old, virtually illiterate, eighth-grade dropout when he robbed a Lake Charles bank on February 16, 1961. After collecting $14,079 in cash, Rideau, who is black, kidnapped three white employees and drove them to a bayou on the edge of town. There he shot teller Julia Ferguson, then stabbed her through the heart with a hunting knife. Rideau also shot the other hostages and left them for dead, but they survived. Caught just 80 minutes later, Rideau would spend the next 44 years in some of Louisiana’s most brutal prisons.

Rideau was sentenced to die for Ferguson’s murder in April 1961. It was the first of three death sentences to be imposed by juries comprised entirely of white men—the second came in 1964, the third in 1970. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Rideau’s first conviction in 1963 because his confession had been broadcast repeatedly on local television before his trial. His second conviction was ...

by Marvin Mentor

The California Court of Appeal, in an unpublished opinion, reversed a Los Angeles (L.A.) County jury verdict that had awarded $1 million in damages to a jail detainee who was brutally beaten and raped in his L. A. County Jail module while waiting twenty hours to be ...

by Michael Rigby


An Ohio prisoner should be awarded $1,402.92 for 11 days of false imprisonment, a magistrate recommended to the Ohio Court of Claims on October 21, 2004.

On September 14, 1999, plaintiff Glen Wilson was sentenced to two years in prison and up to 3 years of post-release ...

Court Orders Washington DOC to Stop Dragging Its Feet
on Sex Offender Release Plans

by Hank Balson

The Washington Court of Appeals ruled in May that the state's Department of Corrections (DOC) has been illegally delaying decisions on early release plans for sex offenders, depriving certain prisoners of their earned early release credits without due process. The court held that DOC must act on proposed release plans in a timely manner, so as to ensure the inmate has a genuine opportunity to benefit from the earned early release credits.

Washington prisoners incarcerated for sex offenses are eligible to earn early release credits that may enable them to transfer to community custody prior to the completion of their maximum sentence. As such prisoners approach their earned early release date, they are required to submit a plan for transferring to community custody. DOC used to prohibit certain prisoners from submitting community custody plans if the state was considering referring them for possible civil commitment proceedings.

In 2002 the Washington Court of Appeals ruled that DOC could not deprive a prisoner of his earned early release credits solely because DOC was considering referring that prisoner for civil commitment under Washington's sex offender civil ...

A Rhode Island jury awarded a prisoner $3,900 for false imprisonment on April 21, 2004. In August 1994, William Ross was incarcerated and held by the Rhode Island Department of Corrections (RIDOC) on a minor larceny charge.

During his incarceration, the State of Oklahoma issued a warrant for his arrest ...

By Robert H. Woodman

The Tenth District Court of Appeals of Ohio upheld a $7,820 damages award by the Ohio Court of Claims to Alton M. Stroud, a prisoner of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DORC). In its 2-1 decision, the appeals court found that DORC “may be ...

The Tenth Circuit court of appeals has held that a prisoner who claims he was denied an attorney or court hearing for 73 days while awaiting extradition for parole revocation need not show that the revocation had been reversed before filing suit.

Steven Roy French, an Oklahoma state prisoner, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging his civil rights were violated when he was held in jail for 73 days without access to an attorney or the courts. French was convicted in Oklahoma, but was serving out his parole in Colorado. On November 13, 2001, he was summoned to his parole officer's office. There she accused him of having flushed" his system of drugs to beat a urinalysis. She arrested him for parole violation.

For the following 73 days, Adams was incarcerated at the Adams County Detention Center in Colorado, awaiting extradition to Oklahoma for parole revocation proceedings. Despite repeated requests, he was neither informed of the specific reason for his incarceration, allowed to meet with an attorney, nor given a hearing. French wrote a local public defender who secured his release. Later he filed suit.

The district court dismissed Fench's suit, reasoning that the suit, if successful, necessarily ...

In a suit for damages against Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca for over detention of jail prisoners court-ordered for release, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that summary judgment for Baca was not available where the facts showed a practice of deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of the affected prisoners.

Rodney Berry was arrested on October 5, 2000 and held for a trial that ended in early February, 2001 with a hung jury. The Superior Court ordered the charges dropped and authorized Berry's release on February 1, 2001 at 11:30 a.m. On February 2, at 2:02 p.m., Berry was released 26 ½ hours after the court's order and 16 ½ hours after his release order was entered into the computerized Automated Justice Information System. Two other prisoners, Anthony Hart and Roger Mortimer, had similar court-ordered releases from the Los Angeles County Jail but were delayed for over 29 hours each. All three sued Baca in U.S. District Court (C.D. Cal.) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violation of their civil rights.

The district court granted summary judgment to Baca, relying on Brass v. County of Los Angeles, 328 F.3d 1192 (9th Cir. 2003) as virtually indistinguishable" ...

The Washington State Supreme Court has held jail personnel have a duty to take steps to promptly release a detainee once they know or should know, based on information provided to them that the person they are holding is not the person named in an arrest warrant.

This matter was before the Court in consolidated appeals resulting from lawsuits filed by two persons arrested by warrant and held in the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma, Washington. The Pierce County Superior Court granted jail officials summary judgment. The Division Two Court of Appeals reversed the orders granting summary judgment on the negligence and false imprisonment claims, but affirmed dismissal of the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim. See: Statler v. State, 113 Wa.App. 1, 51 P.3d 837 (2002).

The Supreme Court found that Kevin Lee Statler was arrested by a Washington State Patrol trooper under a Pierce County warrant issued for Robert John Statler, which listed, "Kevin Lee Statler" as an alias. Kevin adamantly asserted he was not the person named in the warrant. His physical appearance differed from the individual described in the warrant by 27 pounds, four inches in height, three years in birth date and eye color. Confronted with ...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a civil action under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FICA) for negligently calculating a federal prisoner's release date, or otherwise wrongfully imprisoning the prisoner, does not accrue until the prisoner has established, in a direct or collateral attack on his imprisonment, that he is entitled to release from custody.

This action was brought by former federal prisoner Darrow Erlin, alleging federal officials negligently calculated his release date, resulting in him serving 311 days after he should have been released. The Northern District of California dismissed the suit, holding that Erlin's cause of action occurred on or about May 9, 1996, when the United States Parole Commission issued the warrant based on the miscalculated parole expiration. Based on that, the court held that the two-year limitations period on FTCA suits expired before Erlin filed his claim on November 1, 1998.

The Ninth Circuit found that because Erlin committed crimes both before and after the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, and he kept committing new ones while still under sentence for the old ones, the computation of his release date was complex. Nonetheless, Erlin prevailed on a federal habeas corpus petition in the ...