Litigation

When Timothy Finley was in the midst of a severe mental health spiral, Michigan prison officials responded by imposing on him the one condition they knew was likely to make it worse: months of solitary confinement in a tiny windowless cell. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure that incarcerated people like Mr. Finley have their known psychiatric needs taken seriously, not punished with damaging social isolation.

Update: The Ninth Circuit sided with Mr. Jones in an opinion making clear that prisons cannot use broad policies as an excuse to censor prisoners’ free expression. The court held that Mr. Jones had presented sufficient evidence that the Arizona Department of Corrections “selectively enforces” its regulations “against disfavored expression, rap and R&B musical genres.”...

On February 27, 2019, the MacArthur Justice Center obtained a major victory in the U.S. Supreme Court in Garza v. Idaho. In an opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court recognized that a criminal defendant has the constitutional right to an appeal where his defense attorney improperly forfeited it, and that this right...

The MacArthur Justice Center filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on behalf of Louisiana death-row inmate Rogers Lacaze, challenging his conviction based on serious issues of juror misconduct and judicial bias. Our brief laid out the split among the circuit courts and state courts of highest resort on these issues and urged the...

Woodson v. McCollum concluded in an important ruling that paves the way for greater access to courts by prisoners who have been the victim of unlawful conduct. The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) is the 1996 federal law, which governs how an individual in prison can bring forth constitutional violations within the federal court system....

UPDATE: The MacArthur Justice Center secured an important victory in the Fifth Circuit. The court held that the sores that Mr. Buchanan developed on his residual limb satisfy the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s “physical injury” requirement. And it found that Mr. Buchanan can move forward with his lawsuit alleging that the Harris County Jail put...

Prior to being incarcerated, Mr. Sanders was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. In prison, he was designated Seriously Mentally Ill. Nevertheless, for nearly ten years, Mr. Sanders was held in solitary confinement. As a result, his mental health deteriorated, he self-mutilated, and he attempted suicide. In 2016, Mr. Sanders filed a pro se lawsuit in which...

Following an order from then-Governor Nikki Haley, Mr. Williamson was transferred from general population in a county jail to solitary confinement in a South Carolina prison after he engaged in misconduct while awaiting trial. Mr. Williamson was not provided notice or a hearing prior to the transfer and was not provided process during the three...

Mr. Wallace, who suffers from mental illness, has been in solitary confinement since 2006. Mr. Wallace sued, charging that his solitary confinement and the process accompanying its imposition violated the constitution. The district court dismissed the case after concluding that Mr. Wallace was not under imminent danger of serious physical injury and, accordingly, could not...

Like many Native Americans, David Priest believes that eagle feathers are sacred and central to his faith. Recognizing the centrality of eagle feathers to the spiritual practices of some Native Americans, the United States Department of the Interior will provide them with 20 such feathers—but only once during one’s life. Mr. Priest, a prisoner in...