Budge & Heipt in the News category
Please take some time to read about our firm’s results, and review our blog to learn more about the types of cases we take and our views on civil rights violations, including wrongful death or catastrophic injury by police or in prison or jail.
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The city of Olympia has agreed to pay $260,000 to a woman strip-searched and zapped with a stun gun in the city jail. Cynthia Brown’s lawyer Edwin Budge calls the agreement “vindication to some degree.” While settling, the city denies liability. Its outside counsel for the case, Donald Law, says the […]
OLYMPIA – In an unusual move, the City of Olympia has posted documents on its website relating to the case of Cynthia Brown, who sued the city in September after being illegally strip-searched and shot with a Taser in the city jail in 2008. Councilwoman Rhenda Strub said she had the documents posted after three […]
On October 12, 2004, Jefferson County, Washington, agreed to pay $1.6 million to settle a lawsuit arising from the wrongful death of Kevin Bledsoe in the Jefferson County Jail. The settlement is one of the largest ever for excessive use of force by a county in the Pacific Northwest, according to the family’s attorneys. On […]
Damon Lowery died in police custody in 1999 in Portland, Ore. A federal appeals court has given another victory to the family of a Snohomish County man who died in a 1999 struggle with police in Portland, Ore. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday declined to overturn an Oregon federal judge’s ruling […]
Jefferson County has paid $1.6 million to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit involving the March 2001 death of a 23-year old man while in custody at the county jail. The lawsuit alleged excessive force and failure to secure medical care for Kevin W. Bledsoe, who died shortly after being taken to the jail after […]
Jefferson County has agreed to pay a record $1.6 million to the parents of a young Texas man who died in 2001 while in restraints at the county jail, attorneys for the parents announced Thursday. It’s the largest such award for Jefferson County and one of the largest ever for an excessive force case in […]
BREMERTON — Jefferson County has agreed to pay $1.6 million to settle a lawsuit filed over an inmate’s death while in restraints at the county jail. Kevin Wayne Bledsoe, 23, died in 2001. His parents sued the county in federal court, alleging he was the victim of excessive force and gross mishandling by officers. “Kevin […]
The family of a Snohomish County man who died in a 1999 struggle with police in Portland, Ore., has been handed a victory by a federal judge who ruled a jury erred last fall in not holding police accountable for excessive force. U.S. District Court Judge Janice Stewart wrote she has “the definite and firm […]
Ralph Lowery sat in the courtroom, feeling old and tired and outnumbered. The deep wrinkles on the 69-year-old grandfather’s face and the slump in his shoulders showed what was going on inside. The Snohomish man was just holding on, waiting for one of the biggest battles in his life to finally end. A few feet […]
In one of the largest police brutality verdicts in the history of the Northwest, Amy Conroy was awarded $8 million on Feb.2 by an Oregon federal district court jury. The jury found Oregon State patrolman David T. Henry guilty of excessive force. “I think the jury is sending a message, and they wanted their voices […]
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