Litigation

The suit details their efforts fabricating an eyewitness account by an adolescent, coercing the 10-year old into adopting the false story, and using his testimony to convict Mr. Wearry of first degree murder and sentence him to death in a case the U.S. Supreme Court has said was built on a “house of cards”.

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...

In Missouri, the Parole Board is running an assembly-line parole process that pushes people back into our prisons without any real legal protections. Every year, the Board revokes parole for 3,000-7,000 individuals without offering anyone an attorney, and apparently without even informing parolees of their right to counsel. In many instances, alleged parole violators are...

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...

The MacArthur Justice Center and the ACLU of Missouri jointly a federal class action lawsuit challenging the Missouri Department of Corrections' (MDOC) systematic denial of potential life-saving medication to inmates with chronic Hepatitis C (HCV).

This is the second lawsuit the MacArthur Justice Center brought against the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office (OPSO), the East Carroll Parish Sheriff’s Office (ECPSO), and the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections for illegal over-detention. Three individuals, Eddie Copelin, Phillip Dominick III, and Donald Guidry, were detained for months after their release dates had come...

The MacArthur Justice Center represented the prisoners at the Orleans Parish Prison against Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin N. Gusman. The suit described the inhumane conditions where prisoners often were subjected to violence, sexual assaults, neglect and the denial of needed mental health services. Litigation began in April 2012; the U.S. Department of Justice intervened in September 2012; and an agreement was reached to address the conditions in December 2012. The MacArthur Justice Center remains involved in the implementation of the consent decree, monitoring reform and progress within the prison.

In this case, the en banc Seventh held, over the dissent of three judges, that a mere parking infraction justifies a pretextual search. The dissenting judges warned that the decision gives police the power to seize people for “parking while black” and that “the police tactics here would never be tolerated in more affluent neighborhoods.” The MacArthur Justice Center is challenging the decision in the United States Supreme Court.