BOP

Muslim man in Ohio prison alleges that prison officials failed to accommodate his observance of Ramadan while making comparable accommodations for Christians and Jews, and that officials retaliated against him when he exercised his First Amendment rights to complain about them by threatening to move him to a higher security prison, kicking him out of a cultural awareness group, and associating false positive drug tests with inmates in his cell block at random.

A federal court has temporarily blocked federal prison officials from transferring a transgender woman to a men’s facility and denying her access to gender-affirming care in accordance with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump (access full article).

Two transgender women in prison will be transferred back to a women’s prison after a district court further blocked the Trump administration’s executive order requiring the Bureau of Prisons to only recognize a person’s gender at birth ( view full article).

During COVID-19 pandemic, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) implemented a policy to allow phone calls to be free to adults in custody. Each month those in custody could make up to 500 minutes of calls at no cost. However, with the end of the pandemic declared over a year ago and the BOP under budgetary constraints, that program is coming to an end (access full article).

Given the stakes involved, a judge’s criminal docket should always be a top priority.

According to a team of investigative journalists and attorneys, a Cincinnati federal judge neglected criminal cases for so long that he has a dead person on his docket, and just now ruling on inmate COVID release petitions filed in 2020.