Law

A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday stopped short of ordering a receiver to take control of Rikers Island in an effort to clamp down on incidents of excessive force against the jail population, instead opting for a "remediation manager" with more narrow powers to work in collaboration with city officials to reform the notorious jail complex.

Though several states have changed their constitutions to close the 13th Amendment’s carveout that allows slavery as punishment for a crime, it is now incumbent on the legal profession to transform the amendments into effectuated rights, says Adam Davidson at University of Chicago Law School.

Prisoners returning from a farm detail are escorted by a prison guard mounted on a horse that had been broken by the prisoners at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Immigration detainees are bringing about a sea change in workers’ rights behind bars, chipping away at the assumption that people in civil detention or in prison fall outside the reach of minimum wage laws and protections against forced labor.

Inmates battling wildfires are just the tip of the iceberg in a largely invisible workforce of more than 800,000 people who work for meager pay while incarcerated. Civil rights lawyers, advocates and some elected officials are pushing to change the legal framework that enables prison labor practices, which many trace back to American slavery and the 13th Amendment.

The debate regarding whether incarcerated people who perform work are employees and thus entitled to federal wage and hour protections is set to continue to develop. Listen to Law360 Explores: Subminimum Wage Part 2.

Despite a growing body of case law laying out a blueprint for determining whether incarcerated workers are employees — which would legally entitle them to minimum wage and other protections — there is no definitive way to classify workers behind bars.

Sonia Kumar has spent her 17-year legal career representing people who have spent decades behind bars in Maryland prisons. As a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, Kumar has fought for racial justice and combated abuses within the prison system.

While courts grapple with whether incarcerated workers are employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act and thus entitled to minimum wage and other protections, congressional Democrats plan to make another attempt to update the statute to answer that question.

The Connecticut Superior Court's rules committee on Monday advanced a plan that could allow attorneys to earn minimum continuing legal education credits by providing pro bono legal services, potentially placing the state among just three that allow lawyers to earn half their yearly requirements through volunteering.

A murder exoneree who spent three decades in prison has asked a federal judge to reject a Connecticut town's attempt to escape a $5.7 million evidence fabrication award, saying a limited post-verdict review weighs in his favor and that the town's prior Second Circuit loss supports his win.

Three men on a New York Police Department list of criminal gang members filed a putative class action alleging officers unconstitutionally surveil, detain and harass Black and Latino people on the list, civil rights groups said Wednesday.

Staff members at the Federal Defenders of New York have announced their plans to join their attorney colleagues as members of the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys.

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order directing the attorney general to help defend police officers from misconduct lawsuits, including arranging private-sector pro bono aid for them.

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that high-ranking officials from Pennsylvania's Department of Human Services must face a lawsuit filed by former inmates at a Delaware County juvenile correctional facility alleging widespread abuse, at least for now.

Five states, 17 cities and one county enacted laws between 2017 and 2024 guaranteeing tenants the right to legal counsel in eviction proceedings, but uneven implementation, chronic underfunding and persistent court barriers have sharply limited the programs' effectiveness, according to a new national study published Friday.

The former North Carolina governor's decision to commute a Black man's death sentence last year rendered moot the trial court's later landmark decision finding racial bias tainted his trial, his defense counsel conceded in a state supreme court brief.

After staff at a New Jersey federal prison told Alishea Sophia Kingdom that, due to an executive order by President Donald Trump, she would no longer be receiving hormone therapy to treat gender dysphoria, Kingdom lodged the latest in a series of suits against the Federal Bureau of Prisons that contend following the executive order violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that preliminary injunctions don't entitle civil rights plaintiffs to recoup attorney fees was partly an attempt to reduce lengthy fee litigation, but it may have also reduced litigants' ability to vindicate their rights in court.

A New York man who says prison guards tortured him during a medical emergency recently secured a $1.2 million settlement — one of the largest known payouts for abuse in state custody — as part of litigation that exposed a correction officer's alleged recurrent violent behavior.

New York City and state officials agreed to overhaul how special education complaints are handled, settling a 2020 class action brought by students with disabilities who waited months for crucial services.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission overstepped by telling prisoners serving unusually long sentences that they can seek early release due to changes in sentencing law, the Sixth Circuit ruled Tuesday, deeming the move "a heavy-handed and unseemly power grab by the commission."

Texas' proposal to become the latest state to license paraprofessional providers of limited legal services could help firms expand their reach and improve access to justice, but consumers, attorneys and allied legal professionals would benefit even more if similar programs across the country become more uniform, says Michael Houlberg at the University of Denver.

Atlanta's John Marshall Law School recently announced it has launched a Criminal and Civil Justice Institute to help students pursue legal careers aimed at making a difference in their clients' lives and communities.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday seemed dubious of a Fourth Circuit ruling refusing an inmate's appeal on procedural timing grounds, as the justices weighed a case that will likely disproportionately affect pro se litigants.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in five cases this week, including disputes over the constitutionality of a task force that sets preventative healthcare coverage requirements, a school district's introduction of LGBTQ-themed storybooks and whether parties can establish standing based on harms affecting third parties.

A Black man who won a seminal case proving racial bias tainted the jury selection process in his capital murder trial is fighting prosecutors' efforts to undo the ruling, telling North Carolina's highest court the state has no statutory right to appeal.

A Connecticut town has asked a federal judge to either toss or zero out an exonerated murder defendant's $5.7 million jury trial win, saying one of its police officers did not, as a matter of law, assist a state police officer in fabricating a jailhouse informant's testimony.

A coalition of organizations, including unions like the AFL-CIO and nonprofits like the nonpartisan legal volunteering network We the Action, has teamed up to connect the thousands of federal employees fired under the Trump Administration with free legal support, calling on lawyers across the U.S. to join their efforts.

The California Civil Rights Department announced it has reached settlements with a Nevada-based appraisal management company and an individual appraiser that allegedly lowballed a Black and Latino family in the Bay Area because of their race.