Prisons and Prisoners

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      Ferguson, Mo., Agrees to Pay $4.5 Million to Settle ‘Debtors’ Prison’ Suit

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      A federal judge gave the settlement preliminarily approval nearly a decade after a class-action lawsuit accused the city of wrongfully jailing plaintiffs for traffic tickets and other minor offenses.The City of Ferguson, Mo., has agreed to pay $4.5 million to settle a federal lawsuit that accused it of violating the constitutional rights of thousands of people who said they were jailed without due process because they could not pay fines.The lawsuit was filed in 2015 amid protests over the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, by a white Ferguson police officer. It accused the city of jailing the plaintiffs in “deplorable” conditions simply because they could not pay debts owed for traffic tickets or other minor offenses.“They were threatened, abused, and left to languish in confinement,” lawyers for the plaintiffs argued in the suit, noting that these conditions lasted until families could produce enough cash for bail, or until jail officials decided to let them out.On Tuesday, ArchCity Defenders, the nonprofit group in St. Louis that filed the suit, said in a statement that checks would be sent to more than 15,000 people who were jailed by the city between Feb. 8, 2010, and Dec. 30, 2022, and that the amount would depend on the number of hours each of them had spent in jail.David Musgrave, Ferguson’s assistant city manager, said in an email on Thursday that the city would not comment “while the settlement agreement is pending final approval by the Court.”Mr. Musgrave directed further questions to the city’s lawyers, one of whom, Apollo Carey, declined to comment. Another lawyer did not immediately respond to an email and call. Neither the mayor nor the Ferguson Police Department could be reached for comment on Thursday evening.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Navalny Allies Say He Was About to Be Freed in a Prisoner Exchange

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      A top aide to the Russian opposition leader who died this month said he could have been among several inmates swapped. The claim could not be independently confirmed.Aides to Aleksei A. Navalny asserted on Monday that the Russian opposition leader had been on the verge of being freed in a prisoner exchange with the West before he died earlier this month.Western officials were in advanced talks with the Kremlin on a deal that would have released Mr. Navalny along with two Americans in Russian prison, a top aide to the dead opposition leader, Maria Pevchikh, said in a video released on the Navalny team’s YouTube channel.As part of that deal, Ms. Pevchikh said, Germany would have released Vadim Krasikov, the man convicted of killing a former Chechen separatist fighter in a Berlin park in 2019. Mr. Putin praised Mr. Krasikov in his interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson this month, describing the convicted assassin as having been motivated by “patriotic sentiments.”Ms. Pevchikh’s assertions about a pending deal could not be independently confirmed. There was no immediate comment from any of the parties reportedly involved in the trade described by Ms. Pevchikh. A Kremlin spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.“Navalny was supposed to be free in the coming days,” Ms. Pevchikh, the chairwoman of Mr. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said in the video. “I received confirmation that negotiations were at the final stage on the evening of Feb. 15.”American officials had acknowledged that German officials were asking for Mr. Navalny to be released in any deal that would have freed Mr. Krasikov, though they did not indicate a deal was close. A German government spokeswoman declined to comment when asked about the Navalny team’s assertions at a news conference on Monday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Weary but Determined, Ukrainians Vow Never to Bow to Russia

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      When Russian missiles struck the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv a couple of weeks ago, schoolchildren and their teachers installed in newly built underground classrooms did not hear a thing.Down in the bowels of Kharkiv’s cavernous, Soviet-era subway stations, the city administration has built a line of brightly decorated classrooms, where 6- and 7-year-olds are attending primary school for the first time in their lives in this war-stricken city.“The children were fine,” said Lyudmyla Demchenko, 47, one of the teachers. “You cannot hear the sirens down here.”Ten years after the conflict with Russian-backed separatists broke out and two years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainians are weary but ever determined to repel the invaders. The war has touched every family — with thousands of civilians dead, close to 200,000 soldiers killed and wounded, and nearly 10 million refugees and displaced in a country of nearly 45 million people. Yet, despite the death, destruction and deprivations, a majority of Ukrainians remain optimistic about the future, and even describe themselves as happy, according to independent polls.Kharkiv is a good example. It lies only 25 miles from the border with Russia and has suffered a heavy share of Russian artillery, drone and missile attacks. Most families fled at the beginning of the war or lived for months underground in the subway, as Russian troops came close to seizing the city. But the Ukrainian defenses held, families returned and the city came back to life.In Kharkiv, 6- and 7-year-old children are attending primary school for the first time in their lives in classrooms built in Soviet-era subway stations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Inside Aleksei Navalny’s Final Months, in His Own Words

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      Trump. Indian food. Matthew Perry. And books, books, books. Excerpts from letters obtained by The Times show Mr. Navalny’s active mind, even amid brutal prison conditions.Confined to cold, concrete cells and often alone with his books, Aleksei A. Navalny sought solace in letters. To one acquaintance, he wrote in July that no one could understand Russian prison life “without having been here,” adding in his deadpan humor: “But there’s no need to be here.”“If they’re told to feed you caviar tomorrow, they’ll feed you caviar,” Mr. Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, wrote to the same acquaintance, Ilia Krasilshchik, in August. “If they’re told to strangle you in your cell, they’ll strangle you.”Many details about his last months — as well as the circumstances of his death, which the Russian authorities announced on Friday — remain unknown; even the whereabouts of his body are unclear. Mr. Navalny’s aides have said little as they process the loss. But his final months of life are detailed in previous statements from him and his aides, his appearances in court, interviews with people close to him and excerpts from private letters that several friends, including Mr. Krasilshchik, shared with The New York Times.A portion of an August letter Mr. Navalny sent to his acquaintance Ilia Krasilshchik from prison. Court hearings “distract you and help the time pass faster,” he wrote.via Ilia KrasilshchikThe letters reveal the depth of the ambition, resolve and curiosity of a leader who galvanized the opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin and who, supporters hope, will live on as a unifying symbol of their resistance. They also show how Mr. Navalny — with a healthy ego and incessant confidence that what he was doing was right — struggled to stay connected to the outside world.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Military Judge to Rule on C.I.A. Torture Program in Sept. 11 Case

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      Lawyers argued over the rare legal doctrine in an effort to dismiss the case at the start of pretrial hearings in the Sept. 11 case at Guantánamo Bay.A defense lawyer asked a military judge on Monday to dismiss the Sept. 11 conspiracy charges against a Saudi prisoner who was tortured in C.I.A. custody, describing the secret overseas prison network where the man was held as part of a “vast criminal international enterprise” that trafficked in torture.Defense lawyers in the case have said for years that the case should be dismissed based on a rarely successful legal doctrine involving “outrageous government conduct.”On Monday, Walter Ruiz became the first defender to present the argument to a military judge on behalf of Mustafa al-Hawsawi, who is accused of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers with money transfers and travel arrangements.The interrogation and detention program as carried out on his client so “shocks the conscience,” he said, that Mr. Hawsawi should be dropped from the conspiracy case.In a nearly daylong presentation, Mr. Ruiz used government documents to argue that the prisoner was sexually assaulted in his first month of detention, waterboarded by C.I.A. interrogators without permission, deprived of sleep and kept isolated in darkened dungeonlike conditions starting in 2003.In order to build their cases against former C.I.A. prisoners, prosecutors had so-called clean teams of federal agents reinterrogate the defendants at Guantánamo Bay in 2007, without using or threatening violence.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mayor Adams Clashes With City Council Speaker on NYC’s Path

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      Adrienne Adams, the speaker of the City Council, has become one of Mayor Eric Adams’s most powerful critics as he struggles with crises and low approval ratings.As Mayor Eric Adams battles low poll ratings, a federal investigation and potential challengers to his re-election in New York City, a Democratic ally has emerged as an unexpected adversary: Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker.Ms. Adams, who shares many of the mayor’s moderate stances, has become one of his most powerful and vocal critics, unifying the most diverse City Council ever and empowering it as a forceful wedge against him.On Tuesday, Ms. Adams led the Council in overriding the mayor’s vetoes of a bill banning the use of solitary confinement in the city’s jails and another bill requiring police officers to record the race, age and gender of most people they stop.The actions were an unusual rebuke of a New York City mayor by his Democratic colleagues: It was only the second time in nearly a decade that the Council has overridden a mayor’s veto.When she was chosen as Council speaker in 2022, Ms. Adams was seen as a compromise candidate, a moderate Democrat who could work with Mayor Adams without being beholden to him. But in recent months, she has begun to regularly play the role of political antagonist to the mayor.She has questioned Mr. Adams’s management of the budget and criticized his approach to handling the influx of migrants as inhumane. She prompted the Council to pass the bills banning solitary confinement and improving police accountability, despite the mayor’s objections, and carried enough support to override his vetoes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Arkansas Authorities Capture Second Escaped Inmate

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      Jatonia Bryant, 23, had been held at a jail in Pine Bluff, Ark., on a capital murder charge before he and another inmate fled last week, the authorities said. The other escapee was caught Thursday.The authorities in Arkansas on Monday captured a capital murder suspect who had escaped from a local jail with another inmate, ending a weeklong manhunt.Officers conducting surveillance in Pine Bluff, Ark., just after 11 a.m. saw the suspect, Jatonia Bryant, 23, walking down a street wearing clothes that matched a description that had been provided to the law enforcement authorities and arrested him “without incident,” the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.Mr. Bryant, who is charged with capital murder in the shooting death of a man last year, and Noah Roush, 22, were discovered missing on Jan. 22 from the W.C. “Dub” Brassell Adult Detention Center in Pine Bluff, roughly 40 miles southeast of Little Rock, after a daring escape that involved bursting through holes they had made in the facility’s ceiling and roof, according to the sheriff’s office.On Thursday, officers caught Mr. Roush near an abandoned home in Pine Bluff where he had reportedly been seen. Mr. Roush had been held at the jail on burglary and theft charges.Mr. Bryant had remained at large, though the authorities expressed confidence last week that he was hiding out somewhere in the city of nearly 40,000 people.Escape charges were pending against both men on Monday, the authorities said.“Our investigators will continue to work bringing criminal charges against all the people who assisted Roush and Bryant in evading apprehension,” read the sheriff’s news release.Jatonia Bryant following his arrest on Monday morning in Pine Bluff, Ark.Captain Yohance Brunson/Jefferson County Sheriff’s OfficeThe authorities also revealed on Monday that Mr. Bryant and Mr. Roush had fled about 36 hours before jail staff members noticed that they were gone because they had earlier failed to take an accurate head count.The Jefferson County sheriff, Lafayette Woods Jr., also suggested that flaws in the design and structure of the jail had allowed the pair to break free, saying that the episode would serve as a “catalyst for further capital improvements” to the jail.Last week, Maj. John Bean, a sheriff’s office spokesman, said that surveillance footage showed the two men had worked together to make a hole in the ceiling above a shower stall and escape.Sheriff Woods added that the facility, which opened in 2007 with 310 beds to alleviate overcrowded jails in the county, faced staffing shortages and was down to 20 guards from a previous high of 48. More

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      Was Alabama’s Nitrogen Execution ‘Textbook’ or Botched? Sides Are Divided.

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      Alabama officials said the nation’s first nitrogen gas execution was a model for other states. Critics called it appalling and far from what the state promised.A day after Alabama became the first state to execute a prisoner with nitrogen gas, officials vowed on Friday to continue using the method in executions despite witnesses’ accounts that the prisoner writhed on the gurney for at least two minutes.Two very different accounts of the execution emerged from the state’s death chamber in Atmore, Ala., where the state executed Kenneth Smith, 58, on Thursday night.The state’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, called it a “textbook” execution that had made nitrogen hypoxia, as the process is known, a “proven” method that other states could emulate.“Alabama has done it, and now so can you,” Mr. Marshall said, addressing his counterparts across the country. “And we stand ready to assist you in implementing this method in your states.”Meanwhile, Mr. Smith’s spiritual adviser and reporters who also witnessed the execution described an intense reaction in which Mr. Smith violently shook and writhed as the gas was administered, began breathing heavily and, finally, stopped moving.The descriptions were at odds with what the state had promised in court papers: that the untested method of using nitrogen gas through a face mask would “rapidly lower the oxygen level in the mask, ensuring unconsciousness in seconds.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More