Litigation

The State of Florida sentenced Sadik Baxter, at the age of 26, to spend the rest of his life in prison without possibility of parole for an accidental death that he did not cause, intend, or play any role in bringing about. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting alongside Mr. Baxter to bring an end to extreme sentences for felony murder that are wildly out of proportion to the person’s culpability.

Twenty-five years ago, Riley Briones, Jr., was sentenced to die in prison for a crime he committed as a child. In the decades since, he earned a GED, married the mother of his child, began counseling younger prisoners, and maintained a spotless prison record, without a single writeup, not even for failing to make his...

UPDATE: In January 2022, the Supreme Court denied our petition for certiorari. The MacArthur Justice Center continues to fight against the unconstitutional practice of sentencing defendants based on acquitted conduct. Esteban Gaspar-Felipe was tried before a jury on charges of illegally reentering the United States and for “transportation of illegal aliens.” The jury convicted him...

UPDATE: In October 2021, the Supreme Court denied our petition for certiorari. The MacArthur Justice Center continues to fight against the unconstitutional practice of sentencing defendants based on acquitted conduct. Erick Allen Osby was indicted on seven charges, convicted of two, and acquitted of five. But his sentence was exactly the same as it would...

New Orleanians who overpaid for bail bond services sued bail bond companies for illegally overcharging tens of thousands of low-income New Orleans families, who were forced to turn to these companies to secure freedom for their loved ones. Although a Louisiana law specified that bail bond companies could only charge twelve percent of the bond...

In June 2021, the Supreme Court denied our petition for certiorari. The Stewart family continues their fight for justice and to hold accountable the officers who killed Luke Stewart. A cartoon of a police officer beating an unarmed civilian (caption: “protecting and serving the poop out of you”); a clip from a Chris Rock sketch...

Together with our partners at the University of Chicago Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, we are challenging the constitutionality of this unprecedented scheme of domestic indefinite detention. We are also challenging the grossly unfair procedures the government has used, under which the government made the...

This case concerns one of the clearest instances in which a criminal defendant was abandoned by his defense attorney and deprived of his right to appellate review. After pleading guilty, Gilberto Garza, Jr., instructed his attorney to file an appeal, but his attorney refused to do so. As a result, Mr. Garza’s attorney deprived him...

At every stage in the litigation against that ban (which the President had often characterized as the “Muslim Ban”) the MacArthur Justice Center ensured that judges had before them a full record of President Trump’s hatred of people of the Muslim faith, his open desire to curtail their rights, and his specific, sustained promise to inhibit their entry to the United States.

Corey Williams was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder as an intellectually disabled 16-year old child, and spent 20 years in Louisiana prison for a crime that he did not commit. We represented Mr. Williams in a petition for certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court and obtained his immediate release from prison through a settlement with the State of Louisiana.