M.M. v. King

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 argues that the Michigan Constitution affords broader familial rights protections than the U.S. Constitution, and that Michigan courts should thus follow other state courts that have invalidated bans on contact visitation under their state constitutions. 

Over the last decade, hundreds of jails across the country have eliminated in-person visitation, despite robust research attesting that in-person visitation is critical to incarcerated people and their families and that it improves jail safety. In September of 2017, the St. Clair County Jail in Port Huron, Michigan implemented such a ban on in-person family visitation, replacing it instead with expensive low-quality video and phone calls. A coalition of attorneys from Civil Rights Corps, Public Justice, and Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers PC filed a lawsuit in state court challenging the policy at the St. Clair County Jail on behalf of children and parents—amongst them M.M., a twelve-year-old child—whose loved ones are incarcerated at the jail.   

The family members argue that the jail’s ban on in-person family visitation violates their fundamental right to family association, which is protected by the Michigan Constitution. Moreover, they allege that for-profit jail telecom companies, which they also sue in their complaint, conspired with the jail to eliminate family visitation by offering the country a share of the profits from the video calls. In July of 2024, a St. Clair County Circuit Court judge ruled that the jail’s visitation policy did not violate family members’ state constitutional rights because the U.S. Supreme Court had already held that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a right to contact visitation in jail and the judge saw no reason to interpret the Michigan Constitution differently from its federal counterpart. The families appealed that ruling to the Michigan Court of Appeals.  

The MacArthur Justice Center (MJC), in partnership with Allison Kriger of LaRene & Kriger PLC, filed an amicus brief in support of the families in the Michigan Court of Appeals, arguing that the Michigan Constitution’s Due Process Clause guarantees broader familial rights protections than its federal analogue. This is demonstrated by longstanding Michigan precedent, by the distinctive structure and peculiar state interests in child wellbeing and familial privacy that are embodied in the Michigan Constitution, and by law preexisting Michigan’s 1963 Constitution that reflects the state’s robust commitment to the rehabilitation of incarcerated people. As a result, MJC urges the Michigan Court of Appeals to follow other state courts that have invalidated contact visitation bans under their state constitutions and thus hold that a total ban on in-person family visitation in jail violates the Michigan Constitution.