LANSING — Sharee Miller, an inmate at Michigan’s prison for women, made national headlines in 2000 and was featured on TV shows and in a book after she plotted the killing of her Flint-area husband as part of a love triangle.

Now, Miller, 47, is in the news again after the Michigan ACLU went to federal court in Detroit to assert her First Amendment right to report prison abuse.

Miller says she saw one fellow inmate stripped naked and painfully hogtied for hours and another, also left naked, deprived of food and water until she foamed at the mouth and went into cardiac arrest, according to her 2015 lawsuit.

Miller complained, first to officials at Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility, where she is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, and then to prison watchdogs on the outside.

As a result of those complaints, according to the lawsuit, the Michigan Department of Corrections in 2014 fired Miller from her job as a prisoner observation aide, a job that involves helping to keep a 24-hour-a-day watch on troubled prisoners and logging notes every 15 minutes detailing what they observe.

Miller was seeking $200,000 in punitive damages, plus more than $2,500 in lost wages. She also wanted U.S. District Judge Sean Cox to prohibit prison officials from punishing prison observation aides who report abuse and to order them to give her back her former job.

Miller's bench trial was set to begin Monday but under a settlement Cox approved Friday, Michigan prison policy will be changed to allow prisoner observation aides to report mistreatment to a government oversight agency or state-designated protection and advocacy organization whose mission includes the protection of prisoners’ civil rights.

Miller will be reinstated to her position, compensated for her lost wages, and have her record cleared of having been terminated for violating prison rules. Punitive damages were not part of the settlement.

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"There’s no excuse for abuse or neglect of prisoners,” said Dan Korobkin, deputy legal director of the ACLU of Michigan. “The Department of Corrections did the right thing by changing its policy to recognize that anyone who witnesses such atrocious acts has the right to report the misconduct without the threat of retaliation.”

Holly Kramer, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Corrections, said the case "was settled to everyone's satisfaction."

In 1999, Miller's husband, Bruce, was shot in the neck and killed at his auto parts business near Flint. Sharee Miller was later convicted of using an Internet romance to get another man, Jerry Cassaday of Missouri, to kill her husband. Cassaday committed suicide after Miller broke up with him, but he left behind hundreds of Internet notes that implicated her in her husband's death.

The case was featured on several TV shows, including "American Justice" on A&E. It was also the subject of a book titled "Fatal Error."

In the civil lawsuit, the department did not deny the truth of much of what Miller reported, but said she violated confidentiality rules she signed when she took the $42-a-month prison job, a little over four months before she was fired from it.

The ACLU says the need to report prison abuse supersedes confidentiality concerns.

"Miller was terminated as a direct result of reporting inmate mistreatment to outside advocates," Miller's attorneys said in a July 18 filing.

"Miller's speech constitutes protected conduct," and the prison's policy leaves prisoners in her position with "no alternative avenue available for reporting inmate abuse and neglect if it is not addressed by (prison) officials."

The Michigan Department of Corrections said the case was not about prisoners contacting outside agencies — which they are free to do — but about the improper disclosure of confidential information, such as health information about identifiable prisoners.

"Defendants maintain that plaintiff was fired because she disclosed confidential information regarding other prisoners that she obtained through her ... position," Assistant Attorney General Brandon Waddell said in a July 18 court filing.

"The calling of outside agencies on its face is not the reason for her termination," he said. Instead, Miller "violated a legitimate prison regulation."

Miller made her reports to the group Humanity for Prisoners and to Carol Jacobsen, a U-M professor who advocates for prisoners at Women's Huron Valley, according to court filings. It did not appear observation aides would be able to report to Humanity for Prisoners or to Jacobsen under the terms of Friday's settlement, which requires the reporting to be made to state agencies or designated agencies.

Korobkin said the approved reporting agencies will mirror those that have exemptions related to disclosures of health information, which would otherwise be confidential under federal law. They include the U.S. Justice Department, the Attorney General's Office, the Office of Legislative Corrections Ombudsman, and the Michigan Protection & Advocacy Service, he said.

Two incidents were at issue in the lawsuit

In the spring of 2014, Miller said she saw officers abuse inmate Rochelle Bielby, who Miller was responsible for observing because she was mentally ill, the lawsuit says.

"Corrections officers stripped Bielby naked, cuffed her wrists and ankles, and hogtied them behind her back, and left her lying on her stomach in a cell," the suit alleges. "Bielby remained hogtied and screaming out in pain for nearly five hours."

Miller saw Bielby sliding off her bed and was concerned she would sustain serious injuries if she fell, the lawsuit says. She complained to prison officials, who said the officers' actions were appropriate, before contacting advocates outside the prison, according to the suit.

Miller said in court filings that prison officials met with her after learning about the external reports, but did not reprimand her. Instead, an official "simply encouraged Miller to report to outside advocacy groups truthfully," according to Miller's trial brief.

In the second incident, in June 2014, Miller witnessed officers abusing prisoner Darlene Martin, the suit alleges.

Officers turned off all water to Martin's cell after she splashed water on the floor, according to the trial brief.

"After Miller advised the officers that Martin was begging for water, they placed a small paper cup of water in Martin's cell every few hours," the lawsuit alleges.

Miller complained repeatedly about Martin's deteriorating condition, and saw her "foaming at the mouth, vomiting, and unresponsive." A nurse occasionally gave Martin a shot, but did not test her vital signs, and she eventually "went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to the hospital," the suit alleges. Martin, who was discharged from parole in 2016, remains in a vegetative state, according to the lawsuit.

Miller again contacted outside prisoner advocates and was fired from her prison job in July.

The attorney for the prison officials said "the validity of the claims of abuse ... means very little," but that some of the information, "in the case of Ms. Martin, was false," Waddell said. According to court filings, Miller told an outside agency that Martin had died, as many prisoners had thought.

The ACLU said that after Miller reported the abuse, the federal government expanded an investigation at Huron Valley. Experts who visited the prison condemned the use of hogtying restraints and reported that concerns raised by prisoner observation aides were being ignored. The state eventually agreed to reforms, the ACLU said in a news release.

Contact Paul Egan at 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.