Case Database
Created 12/15/2025
Last update 12/15/2025
What’s at stake This appeal before the Tenth Circuit raises important questions about access to courts and the link between incarceration and litigation costs. Fees and other costs are used to retaliate against incarcerated people and suppress court claims about prison conditions. Our amicus brief...
Created 11/25/2025
Last update 12/15/2025
What’s at Stake This case presents us with the opportunity to urge the Ninth Circuit to narrowly interpret its jurisdiction to hear qualified immunity cases on appeal. Judge-made immunity doctrines like qualified and sovereign immunity make litigating claims against government actors like police officers and...
Created 11/25/2025
Last update 12/15/2025
What’s at Stake The case raises important questions about the impact prohibitive court filing fees have on the ability of people who are incarcerated to access the civil legal system. We are increasingly seeing court fees and other costs used to suppress people’s constitutional right to petition the courts. Summary This appeal arises from Appellants...
Created 11/25/2025
Last update 12/22/2025
On Day 1 of the current Trump Administration, the President signed an Executive Order that directed DHS to use immigration fines as a tool to pressure non-citizens to self-deport. The Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) allows for the assessment of fines up to $998/day for...
Created 06/04/2025
Last update 06/04/2025
What’s at stake: Whether the court, sheriff, and county can continue to keep people locked in jail in Riverside County based on their nonpayment of bail with no consideration of their ability to pay, a practice multiple other courts in California have already ruled unconstitutional...
Created 03/26/2025
Last update 08/14/2025
What’s at stake: Whether people who are incarcerated can bring lawsuits without fear of retaliation. If sheriffs are allowed to charge pay-to-stay fees as retaliation for filing a lawsuit, sheriffs may be able to persuade others from bringing those claims. Summary: When Michael Wappler brought...
Created 07/31/2024
Last update 08/14/2025
All over the country, there are statutes authorizing local governments to impose fees on individuals for the supposed costs of their incarceration. Generally, these fees are referred to as ‘pay-to-stay’ because they require individuals to pay for time spent detained against their will. These laws...
Created 03/25/2024
Last update 01/07/2025
Port Huron, St. Clair County, MI: Right 2 Hug Across the United States, hundreds of jails have eliminated in-person family visits over the last decade. The policy change has devastating consequences for the people who are incarcerated, for their children and loved ones, and for...
Created 03/25/2024
Last update 01/07/2025
Flint, Genesee County, MI: Right 2 Hug Across the United States, hundreds of jails have eliminated in-person family visits over the last decade. The policy change has devastating consequences for the people who are incarcerated, for their children and loved ones, and for public safety...
Created 01/19/2024
Last update 10/30/2024
When local businesses and a neighborhood association sued Tucson, AZ, to try to force the city to sweep unhoused people from their neighborhood, the Public Justice Debtors’ Prison Project, alongside the National Homelessness Law Center and local counsel at the Law Office of Paul Gattone,...
Created 04/27/2023
Last update 05/10/2023
In this lawsuit against Webb County, Texas and jailers at Webb County Jail, we represented Nelda Nuncio, the mother of Luis Alberto “Albert” Barrientos, a 22-year-old who died of a treatable infection while in pre-trial detention at Webb County Jail after his medical needs were...
Created 02/14/2023
Last update 05/17/2023
This is a class action lawsuit against the County and City of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD), the Sheriff of Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and the Chief of the LAPD, challenging the defendants’ policy of jailing arrested...