Part 1: complete case summaries in alphabetical order.

Part 1 presents complete summaries for each case, alphabetically by year published. The major topic section and subtopics are identified before each case summary. This format makes it easier for the reader to review every case. Part 2 presents the summaries under each of the 50 major topic areas.

17. FEMALE PRISONERS: Searches, Sexual Harassment

24. IMMUNITY: Qualified Immunity

25. INTAKE AND ADMISSIONS: Identification, Searches

32. PRETRIAL DETENTION: False Arrest, Intake Screening, Searches

41. SEARCHES: Opposite Sex, Strip Searches

    Archuleta v. Wagner, 523 F.3d 1278 (10th Cir. 2008). An arrestee brought a [section] 1983 action against a jailer and others alleging her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated when she was strip searched. The district court denied the jailer's request for qualified immunity and the jailer appealed. The appeals court affirmed the district court decision. The court held that the jailer was not justified in conducting the strip search during booking, following the arrest pursuant to an arrest warrant for harassment, where the arrestee never intermingled with the general jail population but rather was confined in a cell by herself for several hours while awaiting bail. The court noted that three pat down searches had been performed on the arrestee prior to booking, the arrestee was wearing shorts and a sleeveless blouse at the time of booking, the jailer saw that the arrestee did not have any tattoos or moles indicating she was the culprit, and the crime of harassment was not a crime of violence. The court found that the arrestee had a right not be strip searched during booking when she was not going to intermingle with the general prison population. She had already been through a pat-down search, and there was no reasonable suspicion that she had a weapon. According to the court, the jailer who conducted strip search was not entitled to qualified immunity because at the time of this incident it was clearly established that a strip search could be justified if there was a reasonable suspicion that the detainee possessed weapons and the detainee intermingled with the general jail population.

    The 46-year-old mother of nine had been riding in a family van with some of her children when she was stopped by an officer because there was an extra child in the back seat. The officer arrested her with the belief that she was the person for whom a warrant had been issued. After being booked at the jail it became apparent that she was not the person named in the warrant because she did not have the tattoos and moles that were described in the file. Knowing that the plaintiff was not the person named in the warrant, a jail officer nonetheless continued to process and strip search her. As she was standing naked, she began to lactate. She tried to cover herself but was told by the officer to put her arms down. She was mocked continually by the officer and a male officer during this incident. (Jefferson County Detention Facility, Colorado)

2. ADMINISTRATION: Release

7. CIVIL RIGHTS: Waiver of Rights

36. RELEASE: Timely Release

    Avalos v. Baca, 517 F.Supp.2d 1156 (C.D.Cal. 2007). A county jail detainee brought an action against a county sheriff and under-sheriff, alleging claims arising out of his over-detention and involuntary waiver of an over-detention claim. The defendants moved for summary judgment and the district court granted the motion. The court held that the defendants did not maintain an unconstitutional policy, practice, or custom of over-detention and that the sheriff and under-sheriff were not individually liable for the detainee's over-detention under [section] 1983. According to the court, evidence demonstrated that only 0.4 percent of persons released by the department during the relevant time period were over-detained, the department had taken steps to reduce the number of over-detentions in recent years, and the total number of over-detentions by the department had dramatically decreased over time. The court noted that the detainee had no freestanding constitutional right to be free of a coercive waiver of rights and that the detainee failed to establish that the county sheriff and others conspired to violate his constitutional rights. A member of the department's risk management team had approached the detainee and offered him $500 if he would release all claims. (Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, California)

27. LIABILITY: FTCA-Federal Tort Claims Act, Bivens Claim

29. MEDICAL CARE: Deliberate Indifference, Failure to Provide Care

    Barbaro v. U.S. ex rel. Federal Bureau of Prisons FCI Otisville, 521 F.Supp.2d 276, (S.D.N.Y. 2007). A federal prison inmate brought a pro se Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) suit against the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), alleging failure to treat his preexisting injuries, and asserted Eighth Amendment Bivens claims against individual prison officials, alleging deliberate indifference to his medical needs. The district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss in part, on statutes of limitations grounds. Following the appointment of counsel for the inmate, the inmate renewed his opposition to the motion to dismiss. The district court rejected the inmate's opposition. The prisoner alleged that officials failed to treat his preexisting back and neck injuries, allegedly leading to the deterioration of his condition. (Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York)

2. ADMINISTRATION: APA-Administrative Procedures Act

7. CIVIL RIGHTS: Programs, Equal Protection

34. PROGRAMS-PRISONER: Equal Protection, Liberty Interest, Vocational

    Boulware v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 518 F.Supp.2d 186 (D.D.C. 2007). A federal prisoner brought a pro se action against the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and various BOP officials in their official and individual capacities, seeking to compel them to provide the prisoner with some of the marketable vocational opportunities provided to similarly situated offenders housed in other federal facilities. The defendants moved to dismiss and the court granted the motion. The court held that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) claim. The court found that the prisoner failed to state a claim against individual BOP officials. According to the court, the prisoner did not have a liberty interest to participate in vocational programs of his choice as required to sustain a due process claim and the prisoner could not sustain an equal protection claim. The court held that the BOP's failure to provide additional programs did not violate the prisoner's right to participate in programs. According to the court, the unavailability of a program at a particular prison is not an atypical deprivation of rights in violation of the due process clause, but rather merely leaves the prisoner with the normal attributes of confinement. (United States Bureau of Prisons' Rivers Correctional Institution ("RCI") in Winton, North Carolina)

7. CIVIL RIGHTS: Racial Discrimination, Classification

8. CLASSIFICATION & SEPARATION: Cell Assignment, Equal Protection, Racial Discrimination

   Brand v. Motley, 526 F.3d 921 (6th Cir. 2008). A Black inmate, proceeding in forma pauperis, brought a [section] 1983 action after prison officials denied his request to share a cell with a white inmate in part because a "Black/White move is more difficult to do than a same race move." The district court dismissed the complaint as frivolous. The inmate appealed. The appeals court vacated and remanded. The court found that the prisoner's allegations--that he was discriminated against based on his race because his race figured into the denial of his request to move cells--was not frivolous, since prisoners were protected from racial discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause. (Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex)

1. ACCESS TO COURT: PLRA-Prison Litigation Reform Act, Exhaustion

21. GRIEVANCE PROCEDURES, PRISONER: Exhaustion, PLRA-Prison Litigation Reform Act, Retaliation

    Bryant v. Rich, 530 F.3d 1368 (11th Cir. 2008). State inmates brought [section] 1983 suits against prison officials, claiming that they had been beaten. The district court dismissed the complaints without prejudice. The inmates appealed. The appeals court affirmed. The court held that the district judge properly acted as a fact finder in resolving, on motions to dismiss, a factual dispute as to whether an inmate had exhausted administrative remedies as required by PLRA. The court found that in dismissing a state inmate's [section] 1983 suit for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, the district court did not clearly err in finding that the inmate's allegation that he was denied access to grievance forms at a prison was not credible, especially given the unrebutted evidence that he successfully filed a grievance there, although it was one for property loss. According to the court, a state inmate's untimely appeal of a warden's denial of his grievance did not satisfy the PLRA exhaustion requirement for him to pursue a [section] 1983 claim. The court found that, despite an inmate's contention that he failed to report an incident of prison abuse because he feared additional violent reprisals by prison officials, the inmate failed to exhaust his administrative remedies, as required by PLRA for him to pursue a [section] 1983 claim. The court noted that the inmate was later transferred to another prison where the threat of violence was removed and he could have filed an out-of-time grievance and then shown good cause for its untimeliness. (Rogers State Prison, Georgia)

1. ACCESS TO COURT: Expert Witness

7. CIVIL RIGHTS: Equal Protection, Search

15. FACILITIES: Facility Design

36. RELEASE: Searches

41. SEARCHES: Strip Searches, Release

    Bullock v. Sheahan, 519 F.Supp.2d 760 (N.D.Ill. 2007). Male former inmates of a county jail brought a class action against a county and a sheriff, alleging that the defendants had a policy and/or practice of subjecting male...