Miami Correctional Facility is shown. Photo provided
BUNKER HILL Six inmates kept in isolation at Miami Correctional Facility are suing the prison, alleging they were subjected to brutal and dangerous conditions, including living in total darkness for months and frequently being shocked from dangling live wires.
The lawsuits were filed last week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of William Anderson, Charles Lyons, Anthony Parish, Jeremy Blanchard, Gerald Reed and Jeffrey Wagner.
In the grievances, the inmates said they were placed in isolation cells inside the restrictive housing unit, where prison officials had covered a broken outside window with sheet metal and never replaced or repaired the single light inside the cell.
ACLU of Indiana Sues Miami Prison, Claims of Inhumane And Decrepit Conditions
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Tyler LaRiviere / Sun-Times
A man freed from prison last month by Gov. J.B. Pritzker but not exonerated of the double murder that put him behind bars has been granted a new trial.
On April 2, Gerald Reed, 57 who says the Chicago police tortured him to get him to confess to killing two people on the South Side in 1990 walked out of Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet after the governor commuted his life sentence based on a petition saying he faced serious health risks from the spread of the coronavirus in prison.
But his murder conviction had stood until Monday, when the Illinois Supreme Court vacated the conviction and ordered a new trial.
Mothers of incarcerated people, joined by other prisoners’ rights advocates, stand in front of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s home in Lincoln Park on Friday morning, They want the governor to halt construction of the Illinois Youth Center and allow contact visits in Illinois prisons tor resume.
Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Against a backdrop of bright pink tulips, protesters stood outside Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Gold Coast home on Friday with flowers, signs and a painted piece of cardboard that read, “Dear J.B., on this Mother’s Day, set our loved ones free.”
That oversized Mother’s Day card included demands that Pritzker sign clemency petitions to for prisoners they say have been wrongfully incarcerated and that he stop construction of a new youth prison at the Lincoln Developmental Center.