Washington State’s King County paid $2,500 to settle the claim of Randy A. Field, who was wrongfully arrested on September 20, 2004 and January 21, 2005 for violation of a non-contact order (NCO) with his wife, which had been withdrawn on November 9, 2001 after Field was acquitted of assaulting ...

Washington State’s King County Jail paid $3,848.54 to settle the false imprisonment claim of Amanda Markholt, who was arrested on a warrant out of Pierce County for failing to take a blood test. The same day of her arrest, December 31, 2003, Markholt submitted to the test and the jail ...

Washington State’s King County paid $7,540.64 to settle the claim of Richard D. Sweat, who was arrested for attempted robbery. During the investigation, Deputy Kirk Rains of the King County Sheriff’s Office was advised that the alleged crime was committed by a Hispanic man with black curly hair. Rains withheld ...

Washington State’s King County paid $16,000 to settle the civil rights suit of Christopher L. Larson, who was due to be released from the Olympia City Jail on June 27, 2004, but a computer check revealed that Larson had an outstanding warrant in King County. The warrant at issue was ...

Washington State’s King County paid $20,511.02 to Thomas Padgett, Jr. for being falsely imprisoned from June 3 through 15, 2001. When Padgett was arrested and taken to the jail, he was not brought before a judge until June 15, which resulted in his release. As a result of his imprisonment, ...

California Governor's Reversal of Lifer's Grant of Parole Not Based On "Some Evidence"

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California granted a writ of habeas corpus to a California lifer whose grant of parole from the Board of Parole Hearings (Board) had been reversed by Governor Schwarzenegger on ground that his crime was "especially grave." The court held that the prisoner's second degree murder, after 23 years, no longer constituted "some evidence" of his current dangerousness. It further held that the Governor's alternative reason that the prisoner did not have a job was legally insufficient in light of Board regulations that only require "develop[ment] of marketable skills that can be put to use upon parole."

Robert Mendoza entered a plea to second degree murder in 1982. The Board found him suitable in prior years, but each time it was reversed. He challenged Governor Schwarzenegger's reversal of his 2004 grant of parole without success in state court. The federal district court, however, granted relief based on the recent ruling in Hayward v. Marshall, 512 F.3d 536 (9th Cir. 2008). That ruling held that only evidence of current dangerousness would meet the "some evidence" standard for reversal. The mere ...

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a petitioner’s habeas corpus is moot when it is only “likely” that a sentencing court will reduce the terms of supervised release. The Court’s holding comes in an appeal filed after a district court found the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) by failing to give notice of a “legislative” rule that limited eligibility for early release.

Prisoner John Burkey had previously been granted early release and upon violating his supervised release was resentenced to prison. He entered a residential drug abuse program in hopes of again gaining early release. The BOP, however, denied him early release upon completing the program under the authority of Paragraph 5(c) of BOP’s Program Statement 5331.01, which denies early release to prisoners who had been granted prior early release.

After exhausting administrative remedies, he brought his habeas petition in a Pennsylvania federal district court. That Court held the BOP was required to provide prior notice through publication in the Federal Register to adopt an administrative rule and it had failed to do so with regard to Program Statement 5331.01. Thus, Burkey was entitled to early release upon completing the drug program. ...

by Robert W. Wood1

Claims for false imprisonment may be brought in various ways under federal or state law. An individual who has been wrongfully incarcerated may sue under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 for a violation of his constitutional rights. The individual may also sue under state tort law, making claims for the traditional torts of false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, or abuse of process. Furthermore, many states now expressly provide a statutory scheme for addressing false imprisonment claims.

At the root of all of these causes of action is a fairly common fact pattern: a plaintiff is arrested or convicted, spends time behind bars, is later exonerated, and then seeks redress for his injuries. There may or may not be prosecutorial misconduct. Although there may well be nuances between the differing legal bases upon which such a claim may be brought, I have argued that the commonality of this fact pattern should mean that such recoveries should be excludable from income under Section 104 of the Code.2 I will not re-state all of those arguments here, but will endeavor to summarize them briefly.
[Editor’s Note: The reasoning used in this argument may also be successful in challenges to the physical ...

by David M. Reutter

A former Massachusetts prisoner has received $100,000 to settle a claim of wrongful and illegal confinement. PLN previously reported on this incident, which stems from the failure of the Massachusetts Department of Correction (MDOC) and Parole Board to implement a court ruling that required time served ...

Last January, a Mississippi federal jury awarded a former prisoner $250,000 for being falsely incarcerated by the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC). The facts of the case exhibit an unbelievable abuse of power by MDOC officials.

After pleading guilty to burglary of an automobile, Will Terrance Porter was sentenced on ...