Litigation

Despite repeatedly pleading for protection, Antonio Ballard was brutally assaulted by another prisoner while incarcerated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. When Mr. Ballard sued the officer who failed to protect him, the officer sought to block Mr. Ballard from vindicating his rights by denying that he had a cause of action to challenge the officer’s misconduct.

We are representing the Estate of Atatiana Jefferson, who was tragically shot and killed in her own home by a Fort Worth Police Department officer.

Civil plaintiffs have an absolute right to voluntarily withdraw their cases. Yet, when Edward Spencer, an incarcerated plaintiff, did so, a federal district court later punished him by deeming that withdrawal a “strike” under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). That was wrong.

While Matthew Locke was peacefully protesting, a county sheriff and his chief deputy used extreme and gratuitous “pain compliance” tactics on him, causing him severe pain and neurological injury. The district court threw out Mr. Locke’s excessive-force suit based on the judicially invented doctrine of qualified immunity. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure...

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.

The Alabama Department of Corrections is routinely incarcerating people past their release dates instead of releasing them to parole supervision. The MacArthur Justice Center, along with co-counsel from McGuire & Associates, Covington and Burling, and Kelly Guzzo, is fighting to hold Alabama officials accountable and uphold people's right to go home to their families and communities when their sentences are over.

The Miami Police Department (MPD) has a long-standing, widespread policy and practice of targeting community members with unlawful detentions and false arrests as well as a history of failing to hold accountable police officers who violate the law. MPD officers are accused of unlawful detentions and false arrests three times more often than police officers...

The State of Florida sentenced Sadik Baxter, at the age of 26, to spend the rest of his life in prison without possibility of parole for an accidental death that he did not cause, intend, or play any role in bringing about. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting alongside Mr. Baxter to bring an end to extreme sentences for felony murder that are wildly out of proportion to the person’s culpability.

After a correctional officer filed a retaliatory false report against Jory Strizich that placed him in solitary confinement for eight months, Mr. Strizich attempted to get relief but was unable to access the prison’s convoluted grievance process. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting for prisoners like Mr. Strizich, who are prevented from getting their day in court because of erroneous interpretations of the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s exhaustion provision.

When Christian Lauria, a pro se prisoner-plaintiff, attempted to obtain legal relief through the Western District of Pennsylvania for a violent assault by corrections officers, the court threw out his case on a technicality—one he had never even been told existed in the first place. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure that pro se prisoners like Mr. Lauria get their day in court when they seek to hold corrections officers accountable for wrongdoing.