Ex-offenders.

U.S. District Court

CLAIMS

Booth v. Barton County, KS, 157 F.Supp.2d 1178 (D.Kan. 2001). An inmate and a former inmate brought an action seeking injunctive relief under [section] 1983, alleging unconstitutional conditions of confinement at a county jail. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants. The court found that the former inmate's claims, which sought only injunctive relief, were moot since the inmate had been released and was no longer a prisoner. The court refused to let the female inmate raise clams of gender-based unequal treatment at the summary judgment stage of trial because she failed to introduce the claims in her complaint, or at the pretrial conference. The female inmate had asked permission to allege that the jail had an insufficient number of female officers to provide equal exercise to female inmates, and that the jail's male-only trustee policy resulted in more exercise time for male inmates. The jail was allegedly designed to accommodate 19 inmates but had a policy of housing up to 72 inmates. (Barton County Jail, Kansas)

U.S. District Court

CLAIMS

Gayle v. Lucas, 133 F.Supp.2d 266 (S.D.N.Y. 2001). A former prisoner brought a [ss] 1983 action against state correctional officers, alleging they issued false and retaliatory misbehavior reports against him. The district court entered summary judgment for the defendants, finding that uncontradicted evidence indicated that the prisoner committed the offenses for which he had been disciplined. (Sing Sing Correctional Facility, New York)

U.S. District Court

CLAIMS

SEX OFFENDERS

Rogers v. Illinois Dept. of Corrections Spec. Unit. 160 F.Supp.2d 972 (N.D.Ill. 2001). Present and former civil detainees in state correctional centers brought an action against psychologists who had recommended their confinement as "sexually violent persons' under Illinois' Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act (SVPCA). The district court dismissed the claims of the present detainees, noting that they could petition for habeas corpus relief to challenge their current confinement. But the court found that the former detainees asserted a constitutional violation of equal protection by alleging that their own race was a motivating factor for selecting them for confinement from a pool of eligible defendants, insofar as their race related to the race of their victims. The former detainees are all African-American offenders who committed crimes against at least one Caucasian victim. (Sheridan Correctional Center and Joliet Correctional Center, Illinois)

U.S. District Court

CLAIMS

Wells v. Jefferson County Sheriff Dept., 159 F.Supp.2d 1002 (S.D.Ohio 2001). A former inmate filed a [ss] 1983 against a county sheriffs department, sheriff and two deputy officers employed at a county jail. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants. The court found that jail officers were not liable for failing to protect the inmate from another prisoner who had previously attacked him. The officers moved the former inmate to a different cell block upon learning of the history between inmates, and the former inmate did not allege that he experienced any physical injury as the result of being attacked a second time. The court held that the former inmate's allegations that the single blanket he was allowed in a holding cell was not adequate to keep him warm, and that cockroaches climbed on him while he slept, did not state Eighth Amendment claims where he did not complain to any officers or officials that the cell was uncomfortable or unsanitary. (Jefferson County Jail, Ohio)