Litigation

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.

H.B. 1020 is radical legislation that unconstitutionally packs the Hinds County Circuit Court and a sweeping effort to disempower voters in majority-Black Hinds County from choosing their own local judges. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting alongside communities whose state legislators are unconstitutionally robbing them of political self-determination, particularly within the criminal legal system.

Kellie Rehanna, a transgender woman who was brutally raped while in the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ custody, has been blocked from vindicating her rights after the Bureau failed to protect her and threatened her into silence. The MacArthur Justice Center is dedicated to ensuring erroneous interpretations of state law do not prevent prisoners from holding prison officials accountable for their egregious actions.

Dennis Wayne Hope spent 27 years in solitary confinement as an act of retaliation by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The MacArthur Justice Center represents Mr. Hope to combat the incredibly damaging and cruel usage of solitary confinement – particularly long-term – as punishment.

The district court dismissed Anthony McGowan's claims, keeping him from being able to hold jail officials accountable in court after they failed to protect him from a brutal, foreseeable, and preventable attack. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to provide a check against cursory dismissal of meritorious prisoner lawsuits at the screening stage, which results in less accountability for egregious misconduct by jail and prison officials.

Jamie Leonard was subjected to what an expert witness with decades of jail and prison experience called “the most egregious failure” he had ever seen in a carceral setting. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure the being incarcerated does not constitute forfeiture of an individual’s right to basic dignity.

Years after Erma Wilson was convicted and served an eight-year suspended sentence, Midland County, Texas, revealed that a member of the team that prosecuted Ms. Wilson was simultaneously employed by the judge who presided over her criminal trial – a blatantly unconstitutional dual employment. Because her sentence had long expired, Ms. Wilson couldn’t challenge her...