Litigation

The district court prevented Reginald Clark from holding several prison officials accountable for their profound neglect of his medical emergency, despite evidence that their inaction resulted in permanent injury. The MacArthur Justice is advocating for prisoners like Mr. Clark, whose serious medical needs are systematically categorized as non-emergencies and disregarded by the lower courts, ensuring their inability to hold prison officials accountable for their neglect.

As punishment for being HIV positive while in a Missouri prison, Jane Roe was placed in solitary confinement for over six years with no way to challenge her confinement, engendering multiple attempts to take her own life. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting back against the torturous usage of solitary confinement for prolonged periods, particularly when it's justified by discriminatory, unconstitutional policies that unfairly penalize people like Ms. Roe.

After four prisoners filed a joint lawsuit, the district court erroneously dismissed three of the prisoners’ complaints based on the false assertion that the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) categorically bars prisoners from joining together in one lawsuit. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to correct that atextual interpretation of the PLRA and ensure prisoners, an already marginalized group, can split a single filing fee, pool their legal knowledge, and share resources – critical abilities to ensure access to the courts.

When Russell Showers attempted to vindicate his rights after experiencing over five years of chronic and debilitating pain due to inadequate and delayed treatment, the district court shut the courthouse doors based on an erroneous interpretation of the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s exhaustion provision. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure that courts give a fair shake to meritorious claims made by incarcerated people, like Mr. Showers, who represent themselves.

When Darrell Woods filed a lawsuit against corrections officers based on their retaliatory conduct against him, he was denied in forma pauperis status due to the three-strikes rule in the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), effectively shutting him out of court. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure that the PLRA is not weaponized to deny incarcerated people, like Mr. Woods, access to the courts to vindicate their rights simply because they cannot afford it.

Prison officials prevented Danyale Tubbs from accessing a rehabilitative self-help book authored by his sister because of a sweeping, unreasonable application of a prison censorship policy. MJC is fighting to ensure sweeping prison policies do not violate prisoners’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to receive reading materials that are not harmful or threatening.

Tremonti Perry was left with paralysis and end-stage kidney failure after he was repeatedly neglected by prison officials and two prison health care companies during a medical emergency, but the district court blocked his ability to hold them accountable in court based on the PLRA. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure erroneous interpretations of the PLRA do not prevail and deprive incarcerated people the ability to vindicate their rights behind bars.

Despite Jason Smith voluntarily dismissing his lawsuit, the district court still erroneously ensured he would receive a strike under the PLRA, leading him closer to being unable to file a suit without paying hundreds of dollars in fees up front. MJC joins Mr. Smith's fight to ensure the PLRA is not used to snuff out prisoners’ rights to access the courts because they are unable to afford it.

After being brutally attacked by police officers in the Loudon County Jail, Devin McGuire was prevented from holding them accountable in court because of a small technical misstep in his complaint form. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure that complicated and confusing complaint forms do not prevent prisoners—particularly those without lawyers—from having their day in court to vindicate their rights.

Instead of providing Cornelius Howell the medical care he so desperately needed for his sickle cell disease, nurses and officers relegated him to a restraint chair and left him there for nearly four hours, resulting in his tragic death. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to hold jail and prison officials accountable for the pervasive—and often deadly—denials of care behind bars.