Michael A. Vallone was arrested on three misdemeanor charges and
detained at Georgia's Douglas County Jail for 7.5 months. He alleged he
was not allowed access to an attorney or bail bondsman, and was virtually
lost within the jail system. He was only released after a citizens group
monitoring jail ...

The plaintiff in this case was charged with rape and indecent
assault against a woman who was present at an orgy. Plaintiff said the
matter was a consensual encounter.

Plaintiff was held in Pennsylvania's Holmesburg Prison in lieu of 10% of a
$50,000 bond, as he could not raise the ...

California Prisoner's Imprisonment Past Release Date Violates Due Process

The Ninth Circuit held that a § 1983 suit filed by a former prisoner was
the appropriate venue for Eighth Amendment and due process claims. Frank
Haygood brought a civil rights action after he had successfully obtained
his freedom from the California DOC via habeas corpus. Prison officials had
miscalculated Haygood's sentences when his convictions for escape and
robbery attached to his original sentence. He should have been released in
1970 but was not released until 1975.

Haygood brought claims against 16 prison officials including records
personnel Harold Cranke and Benjamin Seymour. Eleven defendants were
dismissed in district court on pretrial motions. Three received favorable
verdicts from the district court. Only Cranke and Seymour survived as
defendants.

A jury awarded Haygood $2,090 in damages and $45,383 in attorney fees
against Cranke and Seymour. The district court judge held that the record
keepers exhibited an "intent to punish" when they "refused to investigate a
computational error" even after Haygood had "presented credible evidence"
that he was being held past his release date. Cranke and Seymour appealed.
The Ninth Circuit held that the record keepers exhibited deliberate
indifference when investigating Haygood's original contention ...

A Louisiana Federal District Court has denied qualified immunity to
officials of the Louisiana Department of Corrections (DOC), whose actions
in calculating a prisoner's release date kept the prisoner past the date he
should have been released. All parties were denied summary judgment.

Ricky Nelson was a DOC parolee until he was arrested and convicted of four
counts of simple battery. After eleven months in jail, Nelson pleaded
guilty to the battery charges, was sentenced to four concurrent 30-day
terms, and given credit for time served. He was mistakenly released despite
a "parole hold," and upon re-arrest, his parole was violated.

Under Louisiana law, LSA-R.S. 15:574.9(E), "[a] parolee shall not receive
credit for such time served prior to the revocation hearing where ... the
revocation is based on the subsequent commission of a crime, in which case
the parolee will receive credit for time served for the subsequent
conviction...." Because his time in jail for battery far exceeded the
actual battery sentence, Nelson asked for credit for ten of the eleven
months he spent in jail on the battery arrest.

Nelson first contacted Henry Goines, DOC's Record System Analyst
Administrator at DOC Central Headquarters. Goines, a non-lawyer, issued a
summary ...

In this somewhat confusing opinion, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
held that county prosecutors, defendants in a civil, rights lawsuit brought
by two men who were falsely arrested, were not entitled to absolute
immunity on numerous claims, including a claim that they illegally punished
the two men during a post-arrest detention.

Plaintiffs, Earl Gobel and Michael DeFranco, were mistakenly identified and
falsely arrested on charges of issuing bad checks. The charges were later
dropped. Plaintiffs subsequently brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against
Maricopa County (Arizona), two county prosecutors, and an investigator.
Plaintiffs alleged that the prosecutors allowed their arrests to be filmed
by reporters, "falsely accused [them] of criminal conduct at these media
events," and detained them for hours in "a metal police wagon in 108 degree
heat without food, water," adequate ventilation, or bathroom facilities.
The detentions were apparently "connected to the publicizing of their arrests."

The U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona dismissed, and
plaintiffs appealed.

The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded, holding:
1) Prosecutors are entitled to absolute immunity when acting within the
scope of their authority and in a quasi-judicial capacity. "Quasi-judicial
activities are those which are 'intimately associated, with ...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that issues
of fact precluded summary judgment of an arrestee's civil rights action
stemming from his warrantless arrest and his imprisonment for failure to
pay fines and court costs, and that remand was necessary to determine if
the county court had sovereign immunity.

Plaintiff Lloyd Alkire was arrested for driving while intoxicated (DWI) and
held in the Homes County (Ohio) Jail for nearly 72 hours without a probable
cause hearing. He later pleaded no contest to the DWI charges and received
15 days in jail and ordered to pay fines and court costs totaling $620.
Alkire was later arrested on three separate occasions for failure to pay,
and on two of those occasions he was sentenced to 30 days in jail. No
inquiry was ever made into Alkire's ability to pay.

Alkire ultimately brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against defendants
Holmes County, Judge Jane Irving, Holmes County Court, and the sheriff
alleging that "his constitutional rights were violated by his warrantless
detention and civil debt-related incarceration." Alkire and defendants
moved for summary judgment. The United States District Court for the
Northern District of Ohio granted defendants' summary ...

On December 31, 2003, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of
California awarded $850,000 to a man who was falsely arrested and
imprisoned for seven weeks due to misidentification by the federal Drug
Enforcement Agency (DEA).

In 1999, the DEA was investigating a drug cartel in Southern California. ...

John H. Queener was arrested on May 9, 1989, as the result of a standard
warrant search during a traffic stop. The warrant was issued on January 16,
1986 by the Washington State Department of Corrections Community
Supervision Office. However, on April 11, 1986, that warrant was cleared
and should ...

On October 25, 2002, a California jury awarded $55,000 to a man who was
falsely arrested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and held in
jail for approximately 4 1/2 days before being released.

Plaintiff Roger Brass was arrested on the morning of April 6, 1997, by Los
Angeles ...

Susan Garner was scheduled to be released on June 19, 1998 from the custody of the Washington Department of Corrections. However, her Community Corrections Officer failed to notify law enforcement as required by statute and she was detained an additional 35 days.

Following her release, Ms. Garner filed a tort ...