Kerry Max Cook, 68, spent 20 years on death row for a 1977 murder. Now, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has formally declared him innocent, citing stunning allegations of prosecutorial misconduct (access full article).
The U.S. Sentencing Commission has released its second of two interactive resources providing an overview of certain Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) programs.
Turn Key Health Clinics is a medical care provided utilized by local jails and detention facilities in counties across the country, including Tulsa, Cleveland, and Oklahoma. To date, at least 50 people in Turn Key’s care have died. Turn Key’s policies and practices have also endangered many others detailed in local jails.
Inmate at Pennsylvania federal prison is sexually assaulted by a guard on several occasions and subjected to inhumane conditions of confinement, like being forced to sleep on a cold metal bunk in below freezing temperatures for months. Can he bring constitutional claims against the guard and the warden? Third Circuit: Absolutely not.
A new BOP statement sheds light on the high costs of using minimum security facilities, also known as camps, in lieu of cheaper detention alternatives, including halfway houses and home confinement. The BOP’s main facility designations are minimum, low, medium, and high security. Minimum security facilities are used to house detainees convicted of nonviolent, white collar, and low-level drug crimes. There are approximately 24,000 detainees in minimum security facilities.
On September 4, 2024, the DOJ Civil Rights Division announced that it has opened a civil rights investigation into two California women’s prisons. DOJ’s announcement can be found here. The civil rights investigations are centered around allegations of sexual abuse of female detainees at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla and the California Institution for Women in Chino.
Pennsylvania death-row prisoner with a history of mental illness is held in solitary confinement for 26 years. He sues a prison official, who does not dispute whether that violates the Eighth Amendment, arguing only that he is entitled to qualified immunity. Third Circuit: There's "no room for doubt that individuals with a known history of serious mental illness have a clearly established right not to be subjected to prolonged solitary confinement without penological justification." No QI.
Of the 64,124 cases reported to the United States Sentencing Commission in fiscal year 2023, 21,504 involved non-U.S. citizens. Non-U.S. citizens accounted for 33.7% of all individuals sentenced in fiscal year 2023.
This Government Accountability Office report provides publicly available information on incarcerations of non-citizens in the U.S., not just federal facilities.
CoreCivic, the leading private prison company in the U.S., has spent more than $4.4 million to settle dozens of complaints alleging mistreatment — including at least 22 inmate deaths — at its Tennessee prisons and jails since 2016 (access full article).
Andrew Ciolli was the warden in charge at FCC Florence when an internal investigation uncovered that Ciolli’s staff used excessive force in violation of BOP’s policy. Moreover, it was specifically determined that Ciolli failed to stop the excessive force occurring at his prison. Prior to his time at FCC Florence, Ciolli was the warden of USP Thomson. Under Ciolli’s watch, inmates at Thomson were killed, shackled for hours or days at a time, and suffered other mistreatment. For his actions in Florence, Ciolli was referred for disciplinary action by internal investigators.