Litigation

Update: The Ninth Circuit sided with Mr. Jones in an opinion making clear that prisons cannot use broad policies as an excuse to censor prisoners’ free expression. The court held that Mr. Jones had presented sufficient evidence that the Arizona Department of Corrections “selectively enforces” its regulations “against disfavored expression, rap and R&B musical genres.”...

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...

The MacArthur Justice Center filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on behalf of Louisiana death-row inmate Rogers Lacaze, challenging his conviction based on serious issues of juror misconduct and judicial bias. Our brief laid out the split among the circuit courts and state courts of highest resort on these issues and urged the...

Mr. Wallace, who suffers from mental illness, has been in solitary confinement since 2006. Mr. Wallace sued, charging that his solitary confinement and the process accompanying its imposition violated the constitution. The district court dismissed the case after concluding that Mr. Wallace was not under imminent danger of serious physical injury and, accordingly, could not...

Like many Native Americans, David Priest believes that eagle feathers are sacred and central to his faith. Recognizing the centrality of eagle feathers to the spiritual practices of some Native Americans, the United States Department of the Interior will provide them with 20 such feathers—but only once during one’s life. Mr. Priest, a prisoner in...

Sexual abuse is rampant in American prisons and jails, supervisors often turn a blind eye to it, and incarcerated men and women who complain about sexual abuse face all manner of retaliation at the hands of their jailers. The MacArthur Justice Center filed an amicus brief, arguing that when an officer directs a detainee or prisoner to perform sexual acts for his gratification, it is offensive and absurd to call the encounter “consensual.”

The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) is the 1996 federal law, which governs how an individual in prison can bring forth constitutional violations within the federal court system. It imposes a number of obstacles specifically designed to reduce the amount of federal litigation coming from prisoners. One of these obstacles is the “three strikes” rule,...

UPDATE: The MacArthur Justice Center secured an important victory in the Fifth Circuit. The court held that the sores that Mr. Buchanan developed on his residual limb satisfy the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s “physical injury” requirement. And it found that Mr. Buchanan can move forward with his lawsuit alleging that the Harris County Jail put...

Prior to being incarcerated, Mr. Sanders was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. In prison, he was designated Seriously Mentally Ill. Nevertheless, for nearly ten years, Mr. Sanders was held in solitary confinement. As a result, his mental health deteriorated, he self-mutilated, and he attempted suicide. In 2016, Mr. Sanders filed a pro se lawsuit in which...

Mr. Finley suffers from severe mental illness, which compels him to swallow razor blades and engage in other acts of self-harm. After he swallowed—but did not pass—a razor blade, prison officials subjected him to solitary confinement, apparently because the blade lodged in his esophagus constituted dangerous contraband. A prison psychiatrist informed corrections personnel that solitary...