Litigation

An emergency class action lawsuit has been against Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart, asking for the immediate release of medically vulnerable people in the Cook County Jail in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.

In Missouri, the Parole Board is running an assembly-line parole process that pushes people back into our prisons without any real legal protections. In many instances, alleged parole violators are tricked or pressured into waiving their right to a hearing and being returned to prison without any process at all.

This feels too similar to eras and armed conflict that belong in the dustbin of history. We, the ACLU, and amici argue that the en banc Seventh Circuit should reverse and hold this reprehensible conduct bounded by the Fourth Amendment.

As indicated by its track record over the last several years and substantiated by the events of the last ten days, Mississippi is deliberately and systematically subjecting people in its care to a substantial risk of serious harm due to understaffing, in violation of the rights secured and protected by the Eighth Amendment to the...

Wayne Johnson was incarcerated at the Kemper Neshoba Regional Correctional Facility for failure to pay fines owed to the Meridian, Mississippi Municipal Court. Despite being sentenced to only two days in jail, Mr. Johnson was detained for more than 50 days. Kemper County, Sheriff James Moore, and five correctional officers have been sued by the...

The MacArthur Justice Center is pursuing a federal class action challenging the Missouri Parole Board’s demonstrated abuse of power, disregard for due process and failure to comply with state and federal law when it comes to youthful offenders previously given mandatory life without parole sentences.

Strawberry Hampton is a 28-year-old transgender woman who is incarcerated within the Illinois Department of Corrections. Ms. Hampton has survived numerous sexual assaults and received constant harassment and threats in men's prisons, where she spent the majority of her sentence. IDOC officials have consistently refused to acknowledge Ms. Hampton’s gender and have repeatedly and deliberately placed her in environments detrimental to her physical, mental and emotional health.

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...

Lawsuit against Illinois Department of Corrections on behalf of Anthony Gay who was held in solitary for almost 20 years. The state's action not only compounded his torture, but prolonged it and caused him to take erratic and irrational actions, which included cutting himself hundreds of times and lashing out at guards.

If any juvenile offender can demonstrate rehabilitation, it is Joey Chandler. His disciplinary record over more than a decade of his incarceration has been virtually spotless. He has availed himself of the educational programming available in prison, including drug counseling, anger management counseling, completion of a GED and college-level coursework in Bible studies, construction-related skills...