On April 7, 2020, the Florida Bar Foundation announced that the Florida Justice Institute is Second Runner-Up of the 2020 Goldstein-Van Nortwick Award for its exceptional legal advocacy for the Hepatitis C Class Action litigation. A special selection committee was created to review, score, and select the award winners. This year’s Goldstein-Van Nortwick selection committee […]
Civil Rights Groups Demand Precautions for People in Florida’s Prisons and Jails
With the spread of COVID-19 around the world, we know these may be difficult times for many people. That is especially true for people incarcerated in Florida’s prisons and jails. That’s why, in addition to taking steps to safeguard our employees and communities, we are also demanding adequate precautions for those who may be most […]
Arrested panhandler fights city’s law, saying it violated his free speech right
South Florida Sun Sentinel
More than 100 people have run afoul of Pompano Beach’s ban on street solicitation in recent years, leading to a string of arrests and citations. But for one arrested homeless man, it has become a battleground for repealing the law that landed him behind bars. Bernard McDonald, a homeless and disabled laborer, is suing the […]
Senate proposal funds Department of Corrections pilot program, officer pay raises
Florida Politics
The Senate is proposing spending more than $5.5 billion on the state’s Department of Corrections, court system and law enforcement agencies (SB 2500). That number includes general revenue and trust fund revenue. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Criminal and Civil Justice Chair Jeff Brandes said DOC has serious serious problems on which lawmakers must take action. […]
Claim of chronic overcrowding at Brevard Jail lands county back in federal court
Florida Today
For years, the Brevard County Jail has housed hundreds of inmates over its “operational capacity,” in apparent violation of a 27-year-old court decree, according to a motion filed in federal court in Orlando last week by a prisoners’ rights group. The Miami-based Florida Justice Institute filed the motion, seeking an order to show cause as to […]
More tax dollars won’t solve Florida’s dire prison crisis
Special to the Sun Sentinel
Last year, a Florida prison inmate at Martin Correctional Institution used a hidden camera to document the conditions there. It showed inmates living in mold-infested squalor, passed out on synthetic drugs, and continuous, horrific violence. The video documents for the public what most legislators already knew: Florida’s prisons are crumbling. Illegal drugs are rampant. Assaults […]
Federal Judge Refuses to Dismiss Lawsuit Challenging Juvenile Solitary Confinement
Flaglerlive
A federal judge Friday rejected a request by the state Department of Juvenile Justice to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the use of solitary confinement for juveniles. The Southern Poverty Law Center, Florida Legal Services and the Florida Justice Institute sued the state in September and alleged that placing juveniles in solitary confinement violated the constitutional […]
Florida breached agreement to accommodate inmates with disabilities, lawsuit says
From the Miami Herald
It’s been about two years since Florida and Disability Rights Florida, a statewide advocacy group, reached a settlement that was meant to improve conditions for inmates with disabilities. But the group says the state has failed to comply with the 2017 agreement by not providing interpreters for inmates who are deaf or hard of hearing, […]
Florida’s troubled teens don’t belong in ‘the hole’ | Opinion
Special to the Sun Sentinel
The use of solitary confinement for children and juveniles has been prohibited in federal prisons, but Florida continues this practice, despite its harmful effects. The “hole,” as solitary confinement is often called, consists of tiny cells where young offenders are placed in isolation for 22 to 24 hours a day. For weeks or months at […]
Florida shrugs off the cruelty of locking children in solitary cells | Fred Grimm
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Florida continues to consign children to the sensory deprivation and unceasing loneliness of solitary confinement. As if the Department of Juvenile Justice still regards sadism as a best practice. State lawyers last week asked a federal judge to dismiss a class-action lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Florida Legal Services and the Florida […]
Lawsuits aim to stop Florida’s use of solitary confinement for children, but state agencies are pushing back
From the Orlando Weekly
In separate but parallel lawsuits, civil-rights and legal groups are challenging Florida’s use of solitary confinement in prisons and juvenile detention centers – but are facing pushback from state agencies. The Southern Poverty Law Center, Florida Legal Services and the Florida Justice Institute this year sued the state Department of Corrections and the Department of […]