News

As outlined in today’s Associated Press story, the family of Victoria “Tori” Herr, represented by KRMFL and co-counsel from Neufeld, Scheck and Brustin, reached a $4.75 million settlement with Lebanon County resolving civil rights claims concerning Tori’s death at the Lebanon County Correctional Facility. Tori, who struggled with heroin addiction, was arrested on March 27,

KRMFL, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, the ACLU National Prison Project, the Abolitionist Law Center, and Drinker Biddle & Reath filed a complaint in federal court yesterday demanding that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections cease its practice of automatically placing death row inmates in solitary confinement. The complaint points to the voluminous evidence demonstrating the devastating mental

KRMF filed a complaint yesterday alleging that an FBI agent engaged in malicious prosecution and fabrication of evidence in his investigation of Professor Xiaoxing Xi of Temple University. At daybreak on May 21, 2015, the complaint alleges, FBI agents stormed Professor Xi’s house, held his family at gunpoint, and arrested Professor Xi. Professor Xi was subjected

As widely reported in Philadelphia media, after a seven-day trial, a federal jury returned a verdict acquitting ex-L&I Deputy Commissioner Dominic Verdi of all charges against him. Mr. Verdi had been the subject of a six-year investigation and prosecution by federal authorities who accused him of accepting bribes from and extorting various owners of bars,

In June 2016, United States District Judge Gerald A. McHugh found that imposing the statutorily required mandatory minimum sentence on a defendant who was convicted in a stash house sting case would violate his constitutional right to Due Process of Law. The defendant had been convicted after a jury trial of conspiracy, Hobbs Act robbery,

In a lengthy decision issued on March 22, 2016, U.S. District Judge John R. Padova ruled that a class action lawsuit on behalf of Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (“DOC”) inmates with Hepatitis C states valid legal claims under, among other provisions, the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Hepatitis C is a chronic infection that

KRMF lawyers have filed in a federal court in Harrisburg a civil rights wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the family of Tiombe Carlos, who committed suicide in October 2013 while held in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the York County Prison.  Ms. Carlos was 34 years old when she died. As

Eight years after he was conclusively exonerated by DNA evidence and six years after he started his federal civil rights suit, Byron Halsey, has, as reported in multiple media outlets, reached a global settlement of his wrongful conviction claims totaling $12.5 million. Mr. Halsey was convicted for the November 1985 rape and murder of his

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Judge Gerald Austin McHugh) has issued a timely opinion given, as noted by the Court, “recent events nationally, where videotapes by citizens have proven to be indispensable in bringing to light instances where police unfortunately misused their power.” The Opinion was issued in the case

KRMF along with its co-counsel ACLU of Pennsylvania filed its Fifth Report on February 24, 2015 as part of the monitoring process in Bailey v. Philadelphia, a lawsuit filed in 2010 alleging that Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) officers had a pattern and practice of stopping and frisking pedestrians without legal justification and disproportionately stopping African-Americans. The Report shows