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 essentially allow the government to charge a rate as if…
In the Eastern District of Michigan, our Access to Justice team is challenging another aspect of the profit-driven conspiracy between prison telecom company Securus and St. Clair County, Michigan to exploit incarcerated people and their families: restricting access to U.S. mail in favor of expensive messaging products provided by Securus. As in our Right to…
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 public safety generally. Why has this happened? The answer highlights…
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 generally. Why has this happened? The answer highlights a profound…
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, sought to intervene on behalf of community organizations that serve…
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 ignored for days. Beginning at least four days before his…
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 individuals who are unable to pay the monetary amounts set…
Public Justice is appellate co-counsel in Moore v. LaSalle Management, an appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in this action on behalf of the surviving family members of Erie Moore, who was beaten to death by guards at a for-profit prison in Louisiana. The facts of the case are horrific.…
Public Justice was co‐counsel in this Third Circuit appeal, which raises issues related to qualified immunity and on punitive damages in the civil rights context. A repossession company tried to take Angela Hyman’s car from her driveway while her wife was sitting in it. It is clearly established that the Constitution forbids police from helping…