Posts Tagged ‘Class Action Lawsuit’
D.C. Court Rules Warrant Required to Track Cell Phones
A District of Columbia Court of Appeals panel ruled by a 2-1 margin on Sept. 21 that a search warrant is required before police can use cell phone tracking devices. The decision marked the fourth time a state or federal court has come to that conclusion, echoing similar rulings by Maryland’s top court and by…
Read MorePA Supreme Court says criminal defendants can sue underfunded public defender’s offices
By Christopher Zoukis The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has taken the bold step of finding a new cause of action that would allow indigent criminal defendants to prospectively sue a county for failing to adequately fund and operate a public defender’s office. The right to the assistance of competent counsel in criminal prosecutions is guaranteed by…
Read MoreBOP Settlement May Bring Florida Prison Women Workers $20 Million
In one of the largest-ever employment sex discrimination class-action settlements, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and 524 current and former female workers at the nation’s largest federal prison complex for males have ended a lawsuit launched in 2013. The agreement could bring class members as much as $20 million in total awards. The…
Read MoreTaping Inmate-Lawyer Conferences Stirs Outrage at Kansas Prison
It began last year during an investigation of contraband smuggling into the Leavenworth Detention Center, a privately run federal prison in Kansas operated by CoreCivic, formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America. During that investigation, a federal prosecutor in Kansas City told a private defense lawyer she could not lawfully represent a Leavenworth inmate,…
Read MoreDid Federal Prison Use Chains, Solitary to Punish Inmate for Not Accepting Violent Cellmate?
Alleged mistreatment of a Pennsylvania inmate who refused to accept his new cellmate has given rise to a class-action suit over conditions at the prison. By Christopher Zoukis Sebastian Richardson is under 5 feet tall, but is having an oversized impact on the federal prison system, particularly the U.S. Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, home to…
Read MorePrison Phone Battles Wage On
By Christopher Zoukis There’s a storm brewing in the prison-industrial complex. It’s been simmering for decades, but a lawsuit was recently launched by inmates and families in Virginia against Global Tel*Link (GTL) sees it set to boil over, as inmates and their families have grown tired of paying the price for the wages of a…
Read More33,000 Arizona Prisoners Now Can Sue State over Health Care, Solitary Confinement
By ACLU Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled that the American Civil Liberties Union and the Prison Law Office can move forward with a lawsuit against the state of Arizona on behalf of all 33,000 prisoners in the state’s 10 prisons and all future prisoners. The ruling is critical…
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