Litigation

In 2008, Mr. Bowe was convicted of a gun charge under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) and was sentenced to a mandatory consecutive term of ten years in federal prison. That conviction depended on Section 924(c)’s definition of a “crime of violence.” In 2019, the Supreme Court invalidated a key component of Section 924(c)’s definition, known as the “residual clause,” as unconstitutionally vague.

During July of 2024, medical staff at Marquette Branch Prison gave Mr. Taylor and another man at the prison the wrong medication, causing the other man to overdose and die. When Mr. Taylor sought to report what had happened, officers retaliated against him, and soon after a prison doctor sexually assaulted him while he was handcuffed during a teeth cleaning. Mr. Taylor brought a lawsuit in federal court, seeking relief for these abuses.

Within a two-month period, Defendants Andrew Reidy and Albert Piña subjected Marcus Lee Luster to two clear violations of his constitutional rights while he was detained before trial at the Pima County Adult Detention Center.

Gabriel Bassford, proceeding pro se, sued police officers for arresting him simply for filming the police as they conducted an investigation at a gas station. The district court concluded that the officer arrested Mr. Bassford in retaliation for him exercising his First Amendment right to film the police.

Samuel Smalls, an incarcerated individual in Maryland, was held in solitary confinement for almost a year without access to any out-of-cell exercise or outdoor recreation whatsoever.

Joseph Vidal sued New York prison officials for violating his procedural due process rights after he was unable to introduce key witness testimony during the disciplinary hearing that resulted in his placement in solitary confinement for nearly nine months.

M.M. v. King considers whether jail policies in Michigan that eliminate in-person family visitation violate the Michigan Constitution and its expansive protections for right of intimate family association between children and their parents. In joining, as amicus, the family members of jailed people in Michigan who are challenging these visitation bans, the MacArthur Justice Center...

Mr. Avila sued California prison officials for violating his Eighth Amendment rights after they failed to treat a series of dangerous eye conditions, resulting in extreme pain and blindness in one eye.  The MacArthur Justice Center, along with UCLA’s Prisoners’ Rights Clinic, took on his case to help secure him the medical care he needed.

People v. Langston considers whether mandatory life without parole (LWOP) for felony murder, absent a showing that the defendant acted with malice or intent to kill, constitutes “cruel or unusual” punishment under the Michigan Constitution.

People v. Taylor and People v. Czarnecki consider whether mandatory life without parole (LWOP) for emerging adults who were convicted of offenses committed at the age of nineteen or twenty constitutes “cruel or unusual” punishment under the Michigan Constitution.