Trans Woman Wins Lawsuit Against NY Jail After Being Denied Prescribed Hormone Treatment

(image via Geoff Sterns/Flickr - CC License)

A transgender woman has successfully sued a county jail in New York state for denying her medically-prescribed hormone treatments for 16 months while incarcerated.

From Gay Star News:

In 2013, Jessica Sunderland sued the Suffolk County in New York state. She served a 16 month sentence at the Riverside Correctional Facility.

Sunderland said the jail refused to give her her prescribed hormone therapy even though she had started transitioning two year prior.

‘I had been transitioning for two years prior, and to have everything reverse itself… it was horrible,’ she told The Appeal.

In October, Sunderland won her case against the jail and its medical director, Vincent Geraci. A jury found the jail and Geraci had violated her constitutional rights. The court awarded her $280,000 in damages and $75,000 in punitive damages against Geraci.

According to the The Appeal, the jail kept giving Sunderland excuses about why it was not giving her hormones.

‘It was very uncomfortable to deal with the physical changes,’ she said. After multiple stalling tactics, the jail confirmed that Geraci decided she shouldn’t have hormone treatment.

‘I was told I wasn’t going to get it—at all,’ Sunderland said.

Geraci originally refused to prescribe Sunderland hormones because he claimed it would damage her liver. But also wrote in her medical records it was his ‘preference’.

According to The New York Times, the doctor had shared several anti-trans posts on social media.

Former Trump Campaign Chair Paul Manafort Ordered To Jail

Former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort ordered to jail for witness tampering

A federal judge has ordered Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chair to jail amid new charges he had attempted to tamper with government witnesses for his upcoming trial.

According to CNN's Marshall Cohen, prosecutors said Manafort used a method called "foldering" to covertly communicate people in an attempt to evade detection.

Manafort created an email account and shared the password with others. He would write messages then save them as drafts, never sending the actual emails. Other folks would open the draft, read it, and delete.

#shady

From The New York Times:

Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, had posted a $10 million bond and was under house arrest while awaiting his September trial on a host of charges, including money laundering and false statements.

But Judge Amy Berman Jackson of United States District Court for the District of Columbia said Mr. Manafort could not remain free, even under stricter conditions, in the face of new felony charges that he had engaged in witness tampering while out on bail. “This is not middle school,” she said during a 90-minute court hearing. “I can’t take away his cellphone.”

Mr. Trump, in a tweet on Friday, defended Mr. Manafort and criticized Judge Jackson’s action against him, though he seemed to misunderstand what the judge had done.

“Wow, what a tough sentence for Paul Manafort, who has represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other top political people and campaigns,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob. What about Comey and Crooked Hillary and all of the others? Very unfair!”

In a superseding indictment filed last week, the prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, claimed that Mr. Manafort and a close associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, had contacted two witnesses earlier this year, hoping to persuade them to testify that Mr. Manafort had never lobbied in the United States for Viktor F. Yanukovych, the pro-Russia president of Ukraine.

The Twitterverse reacts:

Manafort has not been sentenced. he has been jailed because the judge found reason to believe he was committing new crimes in hopes of concealing old crimes in upcoming trial https://t.co/5tpv7UP5cH

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) June 15, 2018

Manafort was not sentenced. The judge revoked Manafort's bail, sending him to jail before trial, because he allegedly committed more crimes while on house arrest. BUT while we're talking about sentencing, if Manafort is convicted on all counts in DC/VA, he faces 300+ years. https://t.co/LhVmGeMG3N

— Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) June 15, 2018

Trump says pretrial detention is too harsh for Paul Manafort.

Trump has thousands of children separated from their moms and dads, held in internment camps because he has ordered pretrial detention for every asylum-seeker who arrives at the border.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 15, 2018

BREAKING: Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort has been jailed following new charges of witness tampering. He'll be held without bail until trial. pic.twitter.com/W51OHtIsTt

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) June 15, 2018

Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis Found In Contempt Of Court, Remanded To Custody

In light of Rowan County Clerk's continued defiance to heed even the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage, U.S. District Judge David Bunning ruled Davis in contempt of court and remanded to custody.

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union had requested in their motion for contempt of court that the clerk should be fined, not jailed. The attorneys asked the court to "impose financial penalties sufficiently serious and increasingly onerous" to make her comply with the high court's order.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning felt differently, and saying Davis' supporters would pay her fines. And so, U.S. Marshals took her into custody.

According to reports, she can be released if she will allow her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses.

From CNN:

The clerk, an Apostolic Christian who says she has a sincere religious objection to same-sex marriage, has refused to issue any marriage licenses since the Supreme Court decision in June legalizing same-sex marriage.

Bunning ordered Davis to resume the issuing of marriage licenses on August 12. Monday night, the Supreme Court denied an emergency application from Davis, who asked that Bunning's order be put on hold pending appeal.

In court papers, attorneys for Davis argued that she is unable to comply with the court orders because issuing same-sex marriage licenses "irreparably and irreversibly violates her conscience."

The ACLU attorneys, who represent two same-sex couples and two opposite-sex couples who want to get married in Rowan County, argued that Davis has no legal basis to avoid performing her duties as a government clerk.

And a federal prosecutor said it's time for Davis and her county to comply.

"Government officials are free to disagree with the law, but not disobey it," U.S. Attorney Kerry B. Harvey said in a statement. "The County Clerk has presented her position through the federal court system, all of the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is time for the Clerk and the County to follow the law."

Phil Robertson - THIS is having your freedom stifled

Those folks protesting that Phil Robertson, of Duck Dynasty fame, has had his "freedom of speech" stifled by being suspended from the hit TV show might want to take a look at this American citizen sentenced to a year in jail in Dubai for making a "parody" video:

An American man detained for months in the United Arab Emirates and seven co-defendants were fined and sentenced to up to a year in prison Monday after being convicted in connection to a satirical video about youth culture in Dubai.

The video they produced and uploaded to the Internet was a spoof documentary of would-be "gangsta" youth in the Gulf Arab city-state. The state-owned daily The National said they were accused of "defaming the image of United Arab Emirates society abroad."

Shezanne Cassim, a 29-year-old U.S. citizen from Woodbury, Minn., became the public face of the defendants after his family launched an effort to publicize his months-long incarceration following his arrest in April.

Cassim, who was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Dubai for work after graduating from the University of Minnesota in 2006, was sentenced Monday to a year in prison followed by deportation and received a 10,000 dirham ($2,725) fine, according to family spokeswoman Jennifer Gore.

[snip]

Gulf Arab authorities have been cracking down on social media use over the past two years, with dozens of people arrested across the region for Twitter posts deemed offensive to leaders or for social media campaigns urging more political openness.

The video, called "Ultimate Combat System: The Deadly Satwa Gs," is set in the Satwa district of Dubai. It is a documentary style clip that pokes fun at Dubai youth who styled themselves "gangstas" but are not particularly thuggish, and shows fictional "combat" training that includes throwing a sandal and using a mobile phone to call for help.

THIS is losing your right to freedom of speech and expression.

Being suspended by your employer because you embarrassed them is not.