News Articles
This site contains over 2,000 news articles, legal briefs and publications related to for-profit companies that provide correctional services. Most of the content under the "Articles" tab below is from our Prison Legal News site. PLN, a monthly print publication, has been reporting on criminal justice-related issues, including prison privatization, since 1990. If you are seeking pleadings or court rulings in lawsuits and other legal proceedings involving private prison companies, search under the "Legal Briefs" tab. For reports, audits and other publications related to the private prison industry, search using the "Publications" tab.
For any type of search, click on the magnifying glass icon to enter one or more keywords, and you can refine your search criteria using "More search options." Note that searches for "CCA" and "Corrections Corporation of America" will return different results.
Tenth Circuit Affirms PTS Driver’s Conviction for Torturous Detainee Transport
On June 18, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the conviction of a private prison transport driver for violating the civil rights of detainees. Anthony Buntyn, 56, a former driver for private prison transport firm Prisoner Transportation Services (PTS) of America, was convicted by a jury in federal court for the District of New Mexico in September 2022 and sentenced the following February to two years in federal prison for debasing and degrading detainees in a van that he drove through the state in March 2017.
The jury agreed that Buntyn violated the detainees’ Fourteenth Amendment due-process rights when he retaliated against those who complained by chaining them inside a van segregation cage for hours without breaks for food or water. Cranking up the heat in the already hot van when they protested, he refused to stop for bathroom breaks—leaving them to make do with empty plastic bottles.
Officials at the jail in Shawnee County, Kansas, alerted federal authorities in Topeka to the abuse, leading to an FBI investigation and charges against Buntyn. After his trial and conviction, he appealed to the Tenth Circuit arguing that the evidence against him was insufficient; that the district court erred when it instructed his attorney in his closing argument not to substitute the word “malice” for “willfulness,” the term used in the jury’s instruction; and that the jury was coerced to reach a verdict. But the Court rejected each of those arguments. It appeared that Buntyn wished to challenge the jury instruction but had failed to preserve the issue for appeal, resulting in the backdoor attempt to address it through his counsel’s word choice at summation. The Court didn’t buy it and affirmed his conviction. See: United States v. Buntyn, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 14728 (10th Cir.).
As PLN reported, PTS was sued for another 2017 transport, a “horrific” 2,000-mile journey during which detainee William Karn was allegedly kept shackled to a metal bench the whole time. [See: PLN, Sep. 2023, p.57.] That suit settled in March 2023.
Additional source: KSNT
