Michigan Prison Films Women in Showers — and Caught Guards Saying Lewd Things, Lawsuit Says
The suit describes the violations as a profound breach of privacy and basic human rights.
At the heart of the case is a deeply controversial and, according to experts, unprecedented policy implemented at Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility, the only women's prison in Michigan.
Under the Michigan Department of Corrections policy directive, prison guards were instructed to wear activated body cameras while conducting routine strip searches, capturing video of women in states of complete undress.
The suit, brought by the firm Flood Law, alleges a range of abuses, including lewd comments from prison guards during recorded searches, and long-term psychological trauma inflicted on women, many of whom are survivors of sexual violence. 'What these women continue to endure is nothing short of horrific.'
'What these women continue to endure is nothing short of horrific. This case exposes a grotesque abuse of power that directly retraumatizes survivors of sexual assault,' Todd Flood said in a Tuesday press release ahead of announcing the suit. 'Despite multiple warnings about the policy's illegality from advocacy organizations and state legislatures, MDOC officials have failed to fully halt these privacy violations.'
Attorneys for the 500 plaintiffs — 20 named women, with hundreds more expected to join — argued that this practice not only deprived women of their dignity, but also violated widely accepted detention standards. No other state in the country permits such recordings; many have explicit prohibitions against filming individuals during unclothed searches, recognizing the inherent risk of abuse and the acute vulnerability of the people being searched. Michigan, the attorneys said, stands alone.
The plaintiffs are suing the Michigan Department of Corrections, Department of Corrections head Heidi Washington, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and more than a dozen other high-ranking officials.
Neither the Department of Corrections nor Whitmer's office immediately responded to requests for comment.
The lawsuit lays out a sweeping series of alleged legal violations, accusing state officials of crossing constitutional and moral lines.
It claims the officials are ultimately responsible for a blatant invasion of privacy through the unauthorized recording of women in vulnerable states; the deliberate infliction of emotional trauma through policies that retraumatized sexual assault survivors; and systemic sex-based discrimination in violation of Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.
The Elliott-Larsen law, which protects against sex-based discrimination, was meant to protect against precisely this kind of gendered abuse. The suit says the policy suggests that women in state custody are being surveilled in ways no male prisoner would be.
The complaint also asserts that the policy and its continued enforcement stand in direct conflict with multiple protections enshrined in the Michigan Constitution, suggesting a failure at every level of oversight and accountability.
According to the complaint, the body camera policy began in January 2025 and was only partially rolled back in March after public pressure. Although the Department of Corrections changed its policy to stop recording strip searches, the suit alleges that officers continue to film women in showers, bathrooms, and other private settings — actions that the complaint says amount to felonies under Michigan law.
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The trauma has taken a measurable toll. Women have reported acute anxiety, disrupted sleep, digestive problems, and worsening of chronic health conditions.
The psychological impact has led many to isolate themselves, quit their work assignments, and disengage from educational programs. One woman, who had served as a Prisoner Observation Aide for 11 years, resigned from the role due to repeated exposure to recorded searches.
The plaintiffs are seeking not just financial damages, but also an injunction to halt any remaining recordings, destruction of existing footage, and mandatory staff training to prevent further abuse.
'This isn't just about privacy,' Flood said in the statement. 'It's about dignity, trauma, and the state's responsibility to uphold the basic rights of every person in its custody.'
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Florida death row inmate Edward Zakrzewski has been executed
Three decades after brutally murdering his wife and kids and escaping to Hawaii, Edward Zakrzewski will be executed today after the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an eleventh-hour attempt to halt the execution. Edward Zakrzewski has been executed Edward Zakrzewski was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET, Thursday, July 31. In his final words he said "I want to thank the good people of the Sunshine State for killing me in the most cold and calculated, clean, humane and efficient way possible. I have no complaints whatsoever." He then quoted Robert Frost''s famous poem, "He Stopped by Woods on a Snowy Evening," stopping partly way through. The execution phase got underway about 6:04 p.m., his breathing slowed nearly immediately after a few hard gasps, and he was pronounced by 6:13 p.m. None of the 13 people who witnessed the execution chose to speak during the press conference following the execution. Witnesses included media, law enforcement and Department of Corrections officials. A small group of protestors remained outside the prison as media were escorted out. Two Florida executions still scheduled for August Edward Zakrzewski's execution will set a new modern day record in Florida for the number of prisoners executed in a single year. Two additional inmates are scheduled to be executed by the end of August. Kayle Barrington Bates is currently slated for execution on Aug. 19 for the 1982 murder of a woman in Bay County. Kayle Bates was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and attempted sexual battery in the1982 slaying of 24-year-old Janet Renee White of Lynn Haven. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also signed a death warrant this week for Curtis Windom, who was convicted of killing three people in 1992 in Orange County. Windom's execution is scheduled for Aug. 28. Nationwide, there are 11 planned executions remaining in 2026, at least at this time, including Zakrzewski, Bates and Windom. Who is the executioner who administers Florida's lethal injection? The executioner is a private citizen who is paid $150 per execution. State law allows for his or her identity to remain anonymous. How does lethal injection work? According to Death Penalty Information Center, Florida authorizes lethal injection, three‑drug protocol (Etomidate, Rocuronium bromide, Potassium acetate). This is the option that will be used in today's execution. In one-drug executions, the prisoner is given a large dose of pentobarbital, which causes death. In multi-drug executions, the process starts with a sedative. In January 2017, Florida abandoned its use of midazolam as the first drug in its three-drug protocol and replaced it with etomidate, to make the prisoner unconscious. A second drug, usually rocuronium bromide, is then used to paralyze the body and stop breathing. The final drug, potassium acetate, stops the heart. Edward Zakrzewski has his last meal Edward Zakrzewski woke at 5 a.m. today, the day of his execution. For his last meal he had fried pork chops, fried onions, potatoes, bacon, toast, root beer, ice cream, pie and coffee. He had one visitor, who was not identified, and did not take advantage of meeting with a spiritual advisor. It is not known at this time if any family members plan to be in attendance, according to Paul Walker, deputy communications director for the Florida Department of Investigations. How does Florida execute death row inmates? Before 1923, executions were usually performed by hanging. The Florida Legislature passed a law replacing that method with an electric chair, which was built by prison inmates. The first person electrocuted by the state was Frank Johnson in 1924, for shooting and killing a Jacksonville railroad engineer during a burglary. Florida's current three-legged electric chair, nicknamed 'Old Sparky,' was built of oak by Florida Department of Corrections staff and installed at Florida State Prison in Raiford in 1999. Legislation passed in 2000 allows for lethal injection as an alternative to the electric chair. The choice is left up to the inmate. All executions, injection or electric chair, are carried out at the execution chamber located at Florida State Prison in Raiford. The executioner, a private citizen allowed to remain anonymous by state law, is paid $150 per execution. Where are death row inmates executed in Florida? Men on death row are housed at Florida State Prison and Union Correctional Institution in Raiford. Women are housed at Lowell Annex in Lowell. Florida law allows firing squads, hanging, nitrogen gas in executions Florida has added new options in 2025 for methods of execution. The Sunshine State has executed people by electrocution since 1924, and lethal injection was added in 2000. Among the 17 bills Gov. Ron DeSantis signed on May 22 was one that opens the door to nitrogen gas, hangings, and firing squads. House Bill 903, which called for sweeping changes in inmate lawsuits, mandatory minimum prison time, how inmates diagnosed with mental illness are treated and involuntary placement and treatment, among other things, also allows any form of execution, provided it was "not deemed unconstitutional," if electrocution or lethal injection is found to be unconstitutional or lethal injection drugs become unavailable. In recent years, states have turned to other methods of executions after some pharmaceutical companies have balked at providing lethal injection drugs. Convicted murderer and rapist Jessie Hoffman was executed by nitrogen gas in Louisiana, and South Carolina brought back firing squads for two murderers this year. Florida has also expanded the range of capital offenses. In 2023, the state added child rape as a capital offense, in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, and made it easier to impose a death sentence by repealing a unanimous jury requirement. The same day DeSantis signed HB 903 he also signed HB 693, which adds aggravating factors for capital felonies if the victim was gathered with one or more persons for a school activity, religious activity, or public government meeting. What happens on a death row inmate's day of execution? The Florida Department of Corrections lays out the detailed protocol for a convict's execution day. Its guidance includes in part: "A food service director, or his/her designee, will personally prepare and serve the inmate's last meal. The inmate will be allowed to request specific food and non-alcoholic drink to the extent such food and drink costs forty dollars ($40) or less, is available at the institution, and is approved by the food service director." "The inmate will be escorted by one or more team members to the shower area, where a team member of the same gender will supervise the showering of the inmate. Immediately thereafter, the inmate will be returned to his/her assigned cell and issued appropriate clothing. A designated member of the execution team will obtain and deliver the clothing to the inmate." "A designated execution team member will ensure that the telephone in the execution chamber is fully functional and that there is a fully-charged, fully-functional cellular telephone in the execution chamber. Telephone calls will be placed from the telephone to ensure proper operation. Additionally, a member of the team shall ensure that the two-way audio communication system and the visual monitoring equipment arc fully functional. "The only staff authorized to be in the execution chamber area are members of the execution team and others as approved by the team warden, including two monitors from FDLE. A designated execution team member, in the presence of one or more additional team members and an independent observer from FDLE, will prepare the lethal injection chemicals as follows, ensuring that each syringe used in the lethal injection process is appropriately labeled...." Death penalty opponents gather outside Florida prison Maria DeLiberato with Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty said she and a group of as many as 50 would be at the Florida State Prison facility in Raiford to conduct a prayer service for Death Row inmate Edward Zakrzewski, victims of his crimes and the families of all those involved. She said the most shocking thing about the state's decision to execute Zakrzewski is it's overlooking the fact that in 1996 a 12-person jury voted 7-5 to put him to death for the killings of his wife, Sylvia, and 7-year-old son Edward and did not even reach a majority in the case of 5-year-old Anna. "He wouldn't even be eligible for the death penalty in Florida today," she said. "In no other state in the country, or even present day Florida, would he be eligible for execution," she said. Most states, Alabama and Florida are exceptions, require a unanimous decision by a jury to impose a death sentence. Florida upheld the unanimous standard from 2017 until 2023. That year legislators changed the law to allow an 8-4 majority of jurors to be considered a sufficient majority. DeLiberato said that in her 22 years of practicing law she has never witnessed the "frenzied pace of executions" the state of Florida is seeing this year. Zakrzewski will be the ninth Floridian put to death this year and Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed death warrants to allow two more executions to occur in August. "The governor solely decides who lives and dies," she said. "He is certainly responsible for the number of killings this year." She said the governor has been asked by reporters and confronted by clerics regarding his stance on the death penalty and, when he addresses the issue at all, typically tends to refer those who ask to a statement he made in May about the heinous nature of the crimes committed by those on death row. Who has been executed in Florida in 2025? Michael Bernard Bell was executed July 15 for the 1993 revenge killings of 23-year-old Jimmy West and 18-year-old Tamecka Smith, who were gunned down with an AK-47 assault rifle outside a Jacksonville bar. Thomas Gudinas was executed June 24 for the 1994 murder of Michelle McGrath, who was attacked after leaving a night club in downtown Orlando and found dead in an alley the next morning. Anthony F. Wainwright was executed June 10 for the 1994 of Carmen Tortora Gayheart, a student at Lake City Community College and the mother of children ages 3 and 5. Gayheart was loading groceries into a Ford Bronco in a Lake City Winn Dixie parking lot when she was forced at gunpoint into her vehicle by Wainwright and another man, taken to a rural area and shot twice. Glen Edward Rogers, dubbed the "Casanova Killer" was convicted of murder in a cross-country killing spree of single mothers with reddish hair that began in Los Angeles on Sept. 28, 1995. He was executed May 15 for the murder of Tina Marie Cribbs, a 34-year-old mother of two, found stabbed to death in a Tampa hotel bathtub. Jeffrey Hutchinson, a Gulf War veteran, was executed May 1 for the shooting deaths of his girlfriend and her three children. The 62-year-old former U.S. Army Ranger was convicted for the 1998 murder of 32-year-old Renee Flaherty, and her three children: 9-year-old Geoffrey, 7-year-old Amanda, and 4-year-old Logan in Okaloosa County. Michael A. Tanzi was executed April 8 for the 2000 murder of Janet Acosta, a Miami Herald employee who was attacked on her lunch break. Edward T. James was executed March 20 for the brutal 1993 murders of 58-year-old Elizabeth "Betty" Dick and her 8-year-old granddaughter, Toni Neuner, who was raped in her metro Orlando city of Casselberry home. James He had been renting a room in Dick's home for about six months and had known the family for years, according to archived news stories. James D. Ford, 64, was executed Feb. 2, 2025 for the 1997 savage murders of Gregory and Kimberly Malnory in front of their toddler daughter in 1997. When is the next execution in Florida? When was the last execution? Edward Zakrzewski is scheduled to be executed on July 31, just two weeks after the execution of Michael Bell, who was convicted of murdering a Jacksonville couple in 1993 in a revenge killing aimed at the wrong person. Zakrzewski will be the ninth Florida inmate executed this year. The next Florida inmate facing execution is Kayle Barrington Bates on Aug. 19 for the 1982 murder of a woman in Bay County. Kayle Bates was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and attempted sexual battery in the1982 slaying of 24-year-old Janet Renee White of Lynn Haven. Ron DeSantis also signed a death warrant for Curtis Windom, who was convicted of killing three people in 1992 in Orange County, on July 29. Windom's execution is scheduled for Aug. 28. This will be the second month in 2025 when two executions were held. Jeffrey Hutchinson and Glen E. Rogers were both put to death in May. Anthony F. Wainwright was executed in June. There have been executions every month this year except for January. In signing Zakrzewski's death warrant on July 1, DeSantis set the stage to break the modern-day record for number of executions in one calendar year set by former governors Bob Graham in 1984 and Rick Scott in 2014, with six months still left to go in 2025. Nationwide, there are 11 planned executions remaining in 2026, at least at this time, including Zakrzewski, Bates and Windom. Who is being executed? Who is Edward Zakrzewski? Edward J. Zakrzewski II pleaded guilty to killing his wife Sylvia inside their Okaloosa County home in 1994 by bludgeoning her with a crowbar, strangling her and striking her with a machete, according to court records. Then he turned the machete on his 7-year-old son, Edward, and his 5-year-old daughter, Anna, hacking them to death. At the time, Zakrzewski, now 60, was a 29-year-old tech sergeant stationed at Eglin Air Force Base who was unhappy that his wife was considering divorce. Zakrzewski came from Kalamazoo, Michigan and met his wife in 1986 when he was stationed in Montana. Sylvia, who is from South Korea, changed her name from Pun Im after their marriage. Zakrzewski was stationed in South Korea for three years between 1989 and 1992, and later transferred to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and lived in Mary Esther in Okaloosa County in the Florida Panhandle. What time is the Florida execution today? The execution of Edward Zakrzewski, who killed his wife and two children in their Mary Esther home in 1994, will happen as scheduled at 6 p.m. ET tonight, July 31, at the Florida State Prison in Raiford. U.S. Supreme Court denies Zakrzewski's stay of execution request The United State Supreme Court denied Zakrzewski's writ of certiorari July 30 without dissent. Attorneys for the defendant had asked justices for a stay of execution and give consideration to the slim 7-5 margin by which a 1996 Circuit Court jury had voted to sentence Zakrzewski to death. It was more than 30 years ago, June 9, 1994, that Zakrzewski, a 29-year-old tech sergeant stationed at Eglin Air Force Base who was unhappy that his wife, Sylvia, was considering divorce, killed her and the couple's two children, 7-year-old Edward and 5-year-old Anna, inside the family's Mary Esther home. Attorneys for Zakrzewski, 60, urged the court to block the Death Row inmate's execution, arguing that Florida 'is an extreme outlier when it comes to capital punishment.' The attorneys filed a petition and a motion for a stay of execution July 24, two days after the Florida Supreme Court ruled against Zakrzewski. Zakrzewski's execution would make him the ninth inmate put to death by lethal injection this year, setting a modern-era record. The arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court centered on jury recommendations in 1996 before Circuit Judge G. Robert Barron issued three death sentences for Zakrzewski. Florida execution: Decades after airman butchered family, Edward Zakrzewski will be put to death in next Florida execution The jury voted 7-5 to recommend death sentences in the murders of Zakrzewski's wife, Sylvia, and 7-year-old son, Edward. The jury deadlocked 6-6 in its recommendation in the murder of Zakrzewski's 5-year-old daughter, Anna. In a rare move at a sentencing hearing held April 19, 1996, Barron overruled the jury and sentenced Zakrzewski to death for all three of the murders. An Appeals Court affirmed the judge's decision. Current Florida law requires that at least eight jurors recommend death for such a sentence to be imposed, while almost all other states that have the death penalty require unanimous jury recommendations. Zakrzewski's attorneys contend that executing him after the 7-5 recommendations and the override would be unconstitutional. This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Florida execution today is for killer Edward Zakrzewski - updates
11 hours ago
Florida man convicted of killing woman abducted from office is set to be executed
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A man convicted of abducting a woman from a Florida Panhandle insurance office and killing her is scheduled to be executed Tuesday evening. Kayle Bates, 67, is set to receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. It would be Florida's 10th death sentence carried out in 2025, further extending the state record for a single year. Two more executions are planned within the next month. Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, the highest previous annual total of Florida executions was eight in 2014. Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with four each. Bates was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and attempted sexual battery in the June 14, 1982, killing of Janet White in Bay County in the Florida Panhandle. Bates abducted White from the insurance office where she worked, took her into some woods behind the building, attempted to rape her, stabbed her to death and tore a diamond ring from one of her fingers, according to court documents. Attorneys for Bates have filed appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as a federal lawsuit claiming DeSantis' process for signing death warrants was discriminatory. The federal lawsuit was dismissed last Tuesday, with the judge finding problems with the lawsuit's statistical analysis. The court ruled that even if the numbers were correct, they wouldn't necessarily prove discrimination. On the same day, the Florida Supreme Court denied Bates' pending claims, including arguments that evidence of organic brain damage had been inadequately considered during his second penalty phase. The court ruled that Bates has had three decades to raise these claims. A U.S. Supreme Court decision is still pending on Bates' final appeal. A total of 28 men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and at least 10 other people are scheduled to be put to death in seven states during the remainder of 2025. Curtis Windom, 59, is set to become the 11th person executed in Florida on Aug. 28. He was convicted of killing three people in the Orlando area in 1992. David Pittman, 63, would be the 12th person executed in Florida if his death sentence is carried out as scheduled Sept. 17. He was found guilty of fatally stabbing his estranged wife's sister and parents at their Polk County home before setting it on fire in 1990. Florida executions are carried out using a three-drug lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
'Devil in Ozarks' planned prison escape for months, cited lax security in kitchen, report says
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A former police chief known as the 'Devil in the Ozarks' spent months planning his escape from an Arkansas prison, and said lax security in the kitchen where he worked allowed the convicted murderer to gather the supplies he needed, an internal review by prison officials released Friday said. The Department of Corrections' critical incident review of Grant Hardin's May 25 escape from the Calico Rock prison provides the most detailed description so far of his planning and the issues that allowed him to walk out of the facility. Hardin was captured 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) northwest of the Calico Rock prison on June 6. Authorities said he escaped by donning an outfit he designed to look like a law enforcement uniform. Hardin, who worked in the prison's kitchen, said he spent six months planning his escape and used black Sharpie markers and laundry he found lying around the kitchen to create the fake uniform, according to the report. Hardin fashioned a fake badge using the lid of a can. 'Hardin stated he would hide the clothes and other items he was going to need in the bottom of a trash can in the kitchen due to no one ever shaking it down,' the report says. Two prison employees have been fired for procedure violations that led to Hardin's escape. They include a kitchen employee who allowed Hardin on a back dock unsupervised and a tower guard who unlocked the back gate that Hardin walked through without confirming his identity. Several other employees have been suspended and one demoted, lawmakers were told this week. The kitchen's staff was 'very lax on security,' Hardin told investigators, allowing him to gather what he needed for his escape. Hardin said he didn't have any help from staff or other inmates. Hardin had constructed a ladder from wooden pallets in case he needed to scale the prison fence but didn't need it. '(Hardin) stated when he walked up to the gate, he just directed the officer to 'open the gate,' and he did,' the report says. After he escaped from the prison, Hardin survived on food he had smuggled out of the prison along with distilled water from his CPAP machine. Hardin also drank creek water and ate berries, bird eggs and ants. 'He said his plan was to hide in the woods for six months if need be and begin moving west out of the area,' the report says. Hardin, a former police chief in the small town of Gateway, near the Arkansas-Missouri border, is serving lengthy sentences for murder and rape. He was the subject of the TV documentary 'Devil in the Ozarks.' The report is one of two reviews into Hardin's escape, which is also being investigated by the Arkansas State Police. A legislative subcommittee has also been holding hearings about the escape. Republican Rep. Howard Beaty, who co-chairs the Legislative Council's Charitable, Penal and Correctional Institutions Subcommittee, said the panel hoped to discuss both reports with officials at a hearing next month. Republican Sen. Ben Gilmore, who sits on the panel, said he didn't think the department's review took a thorough enough look at the systemic issues that enabled Hardin's escape. 'They have focused on the final failure instead of all of the things that led up to it,' he said. The report also cites confusion among corrections officials in the early stages of Hardin's escape about which law enforcement agencies had been notified, the report says. 'It is obvious there was a lot of confusion during the beginning stages of opening the command center and of notifications being made,' the report says. Hardin had been misclassified and shouldn't have been held at the primarily medium-security prison, according to the review. After he was captured, Hardin was moved to a maximum-security prison. He has pleaded not guilty to escape charges, and his trial is set for November. Hardin's custody classification hadn't been reviewed since October 2019, the report says. The Department of Corrections' review says officials had taken several steps since Hardin's escape, including removing the electric locks from the gates to prevent someone from walking out without an officer present. The report also calls for additional cameras after finding a blind spot on the dock Hardin used, and for any 'shakedown' searches for contraband to include mechanical rooms and side rooms.
