The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a district court’s order allowing across-the-board redactions by the government in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The American Immigration Lawyers Association submitted a FOIA request to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), seeking disclosure
The Fourth Circuit has reversed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officials on a prisoner’s claim that his Eighth Amendment rights were violated. Paul Scinto, Sr. was incarcerated at the Federal Prison Camp in Butner, North Carolina, between June 2005 and March 2006. He suffered from a
The federal government’s attempt to restrict a former prisoner’s First Amendment right to free speech has been reversed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Darren Chaker was convicted of a white-collar crime related to a bankruptcy filing and sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. As part of his three years of supervised release
The Ninth Circuit has ruled that the former warden at the California Institute for Women (CIW) is not immune from liability for failing to protect two female prisoners from repeated sexual abuse at the hands of a prison guard. Jossie Ramos and Melissa Ortiz were incarcerated at CIW in 2010 when Guillermo Garcia was the
By Christopher Zoukis The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a prisoner’s verbal grievance made to prison staff was protected speech under the First Amendment, and gave rise to a civil action when the prisoner faced retaliation for making a verbal complaint. Charles Mack, incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Loretto, Pennsylvania,
By Christopher Zoukis The Eighth Circuit ruled on September 15, 2016, in a per curiam opinion, that the Sixth Amendment’s right to a speedy trial is essentially not applicable to prisoners held in administrative segregation pending criminal charges. Rashad A. Wearing was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Forrest City, Arkansas in April 2013
By Christopher Zoukis The Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Richard Roberts, 63, unexpectedly stepped down on March 16, 2016. Although the official reason for his departure was listed as an undisclosed disability, Judge Roberts’ early retirement came the same week a lawsuit was filed accusing him of sexually
By Christopher Zoukis On March 13, 1997, 41-year-old Dahn Clary, Jr. of Texarkana, Texas was arrested and charged with the aggravated sexual assault of his best friend’s 11-year-old son. The boy told his father and police that Clary had fondled his genitals and performed oral sex on him several times. Clary was convicted and served
The state of Georgia, which carried out the highest number of executions in the nation last year, putting nine convicted criminals to death, recorded its first for this year May 17 by administering a three-drug lethal injection protocol to J.W. Ledford Jr., a criminal who spent years appealing his convictions at various levels, and whose
The leading organization for the nation’s architects has rejected a call from some of its members to reject employment that would involve the design of certain prison facilities, such as execution chambers and Special Housing Unit cells. In February 2014, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) was faced with a very troubling ethics petition. Proposed
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