The July 2007 issue of Prison Legal News reported Sarsfield v. City of Marlborough, $13,655,940 Award for False Massachusetts Rape Conviction and Gregory v. City of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky Settles with Wrongly Imprisoned Man for $3.9 Million. Barry Scheck was lead counsel for both plaintiffs, but while he is a co-director of the Innocence Project, he represented both of these clients in section 1983 suits in his capacity as co-founding partner of the civil rights law firm, Cochran Neufeld & Scheck.
The IP is a nonprofit and does not represent section 1983 plaintiffs in wrongful conviction lawsuits for damages. CNS does, taking on interested clients after they have been exonerated and released. Debra Cornwall, a lawyer at CNS, also represented both Eric Sarsfield and William Gregory along with Barry Scheck, and partner Nick Brustin also worked on the Gregory case.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court?s dismissal of a prisoner?s suit related to a delay in granting time served credits. The court concluded that plaintiff?s claims were not barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

In 1997, Reginald Burke pleaded no contest to two Wisconsin criminal offenses and was sentenced to 5- and 2-years, respectively. The sentences were imposed consecutively to one another, and to a separate parole violation sanction. In May 1999, the court amended its order so the 1997 sentences would run concurrently.

Burke then filed various state court actions seeking credit for the 8 months he spent in jail between his July 12, 1996 arrest and March 20, 1997 sentencing. The state court rejected Burke?s various attempts to obtain time served credits.

Burke also sought the time served credits from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC). After nearly two years, DOC granted Burke 8 months and 8 days of jail credit. Burke then brought an action in federal court, claiming that ?he was detained ? longer than he should have been due to the ?deliberate indifference and delay? of DOC officials in granting him the jail credit.??

The district court granted Defendants? motion to dismiss, ...

A federal district court for the District of Columbia has, once again, certified a class action in a complaint that District of Columbia is over-detaining persons ordered released and strip searching them without individualized suspicion. The Court noted this is ?a case in which history insists on repeating itself.? PLN reported that history, which had identical allegations as in Bynum v. District of Columbia, 257 F.Supp.2d 1 (D.DC. 2002). See: PLN, October, 2006.

The Bynum litigation was resolved by a settlement agreement the Court approved in January 2006. In Bynum, the problem was that ?court releases? prisoners who were entitled to release after a court appearance were typically taken from court back to jail. There, they would await processing of their release, which involved acquiring the release order, verifying no warrants or detainers existed, and obtaining their personal property. That process resulted in a day, two, or a week or more of over-detention.

While they awaited for the ?out-processing? to be completed, the prisoners were taken back to general population. This required they be strip searched. The Bynum settlement required those ordered released to be held at a holding facility on the grounds of D.C. General Hospital.
Sometime in December ...

On February 15, 2006, a federal jury in California awarded $18 million to a man who was wrongly charged with sexual assault of a child and imprisoned for 10 months.

During his false imprisonment in the Los Angeles County Jail, Ramirez, 26, was spat on by deputies and urinated on ...

The court of appeals for the Ninth circuit held that a Washington state prisoner had a due process liberty interest in being released from prison on his good time release date. The plaintiff in this section 1983 case was held 20 days past his good time release date despite having disciplinary charges against him dismissed. The court held the plaintiff had an entitlement to his good time credits and the denial of such credits without a hearing violated due process. Plaintiff was seeking money damages and was serving an indeterminate sentence. See: Bergen v. Spaulding, 881 F.2d 719 (9th Cir. 1989).

The court of appeals for the Third circuit affirmed in part, reversed and remanded in part, a district court's ruling in favor of a Pennsylvania prisoner who was held nine months past his release date. The district court awarded $3,520 in damages. The court of appeals discusses the elements of deliberate indifference, and cruel and unusual punishment as it applies to unlawful imprisonment. The prison record clerk was held liable. The issue of the supervisory liability of some defendants was remanded for further consideration as the court held the record on appeal was inadequate. All other aspects were affirmed. See: Sample v. Diecks, 885 F.2d 1099 (3rd Cir. 1989).

The U.S. Supreme Court held that judicial immunity did not preclude issuance of injunctive relief against a Virginia state magistrate nor did it bar the award of attorney fees against her in a civil rights action. Respondents were arrested on non-jailable misdemeanor charges and ordered by magistrate to pay a ...

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals held a parole board' s misinterpretation of a sentencing court's order and a slow investigation into the order's meaning did not exhibit deliberate indifference. The plaintiff, a former prisoner of the Philadelphia County Prison, was on parole when he was arrested for burglary and related charges. He was sentenced to time in to 23 months." The parole board considered this as not allowing parole, and they would not allow service of back time on the original sentence. The plaintiff argued the judge intended he serve no more time and be paroled immediately on the burglary sentence, so he was available to serve his back time. Parole board officials initiated an investigation that took over five months to confirm the plaintiff's position. Once immediately released from prison after the matter was clarified, the plaintiff sued alleging Eighth Amendment violations. The district court granted the defendants' summary judgment motion.

The Third Circuit, while not condoning the fact it took five months to investigate the plaintiff's claim and to ultimately release him, held the parole board officials were not deliberately indifferent to the prisoner's right to be released upon sentence termination. The court found the parole board ...

A Pennsylvania federal district court held a prisoner failed to show prison officials were deliberately indifferent to his claims that he was over-detained. The SCI Graterford prisoner alleged prison officials violated his constitutional rights by detaining him four months and seventeen days past his maximum sentence date. The court stated the detention of a prisoner beyond the termination of his sentence can state an Eighth Amendment violation if that detention occurs without penological justification. To establish liability, a plaintiff must demonstrate three elements.

"First, a plaintiff must demonstrate that a prison official had knowledge of the prisoner's problem and thus of the risk that unwarranted punishment was being, or would be, inflicted. Second, the plaintiff must show that the official either failed to act or took only ineffectual action under the circumstances, indicating that his/her response to the problem was a product of deliberate indifference to the prisoner's plight. Finally, the plaintiff must show a causal connection between the official's response to the problem and the unjustified detention."

The court held the prisoner failed to produce evidence that two of the defendants were aware the prisoner was disputing his incarceration. The last defendant initiated an investigation, which the court held ...

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that a ruling from the Florida First District Court of Appeals (DCA) falls short of the clarity of the law to defeat a defense of qualified immunity. A Florida prisoner was over-detained by 140 days due to prison officials incorrectly forfeiting statutory gain time. The DCA ruled in another case that prison officials have no authority to forfeit statutory gain time. See: Baranko v. Wainright, 448 So.2d 1067 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984). After this ruling was issued, the prisoner moved prison officials to reinstate the 140 days. When this request was denied the prisoner moved for habeas corpus relief in state court.

Prison officials responded to the habeas petition by arguing Baranko was wrongly decided and requested that the court overrule it. The state court declined and entered habeas relief. The prisoner was then released and brought suit for damages alleging Eighth Amendment violations for the over-detention. The district court dismissed on qualified immunity grounds. The Eleventh Circuit held the department's misinterpretation of the law was a reasonable one and that it was entitled to attempt to persuade the intermediate court that its prior decision was in error. The district court was affirmed. ...