Though the cause of Rachel Hammers’ death inside the Douglas County Jail remains in dispute, one defendant in her ongoing, wrongful death lawsuit has offered to settle the matter privately. The Douglas County Visiting Nurses Association, who until this year provided medical services to the jail, filed a motion in federal court on Tuesday requesting a hearing for a judge to approve their …
A Houston man has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city of Houston and an officer, saying he is permanently injured because the officer slammed his head into a jail cell wall, causing him to bleed profusely. You need Flash to watch this video. Sorry, your browser doesn’t support Flash , needs a Flash update , or has Flash disabled.
Police, jailers and court officials in the city of Florissant routinely hold people in jail for an inability to pay fines, often arbitrarily and indefinitely in a jail with deplorable conditions, according to a class-action lawsuit filed Monday. The lawsuit was filed by the nonprofit law group ArchCity Defenders on behalf of five St. Louis-area residents. ArchCity Defenders has filed lawsuits …
A federal judge has granted class action status to a lawsuit filed against the state of Utah on behalf of several mentally ill prison inmates. The Disability Law Center is suing the state on behalf of three inmates in Utah jails, alleging that they’re being held unconstitutionally while they wait to get treatment at the Utah State Hospital. Aaron Kinikini is the center’s legal director.
A federal judge in Kansas has thrown out a Muslim inmate’s lawsuit that accused a county jail and its administrators of violating the convicted killer’s religious rights. U.S. Magistrate Judge David J. Waxse dismissed Eddie Gordon Sr.’s case involving the Shawnee County Jail after Gordon missed a court-imposed deadline to submit any evidence the alleged misconduct harmed him …
Three more Bay Area counties are facing class action lawsuits for the cost of phone calls to and from jails, an expensive process that critics argue unfairly burdens inmates’ families by making them pay excessive fees to keep in touch with loved ones. A group of attorneys who have already filed several lawsuits on the matter in Southern California filed their fourth lawsuit in …
Lawyers for Ron Hickman of Harris County filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to toss out a lawsuit filed by a rape victim whom prosecutors got a judge to put in jail after the victim had a mental breakdown while testifying against her accused rapist. Channel 2 exposed the situation of “Jenny” and another rape victim who were held in jail so prosecutors could make sure they testified against …
Filthy cells, toilets and walls covered in blood and feces, and sexual harassment by sheriffs’ deputies – those are just some of the things women say they’ve endured at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. Four women who filed a federal lawsuit over the jail’s conditions have settled with Alameda County, and say the fact that they’re white helped bring about the settlement and changes at …
After struggling with addiction and mental illness, Jayne Fuentes served her time, found a job and got her life back on track. But even though she’d been sober and crime-free for years, one thing dogged her: fear of being jailed or forced to do physical labor because she can’t afford to pay the government. Jayne is among the scores of people who owe Benton County, Washington thousands of …
The mother of a man who died in his cell at the Broome County jail last year claims neglect and missteps by the jail’s medical contractor led to her son’s death. In an April lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, Rose Carter, the mother of Salladin P. Barton, says her son “died an …