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Austin v. James
filed 05/15/1995
Agenda area: Institutionalized persons
In 1995, Alabama corrections officials brought back the barbarity of chain gangs. The Center sued, claiming that chaining men in groups of five and putting them on busy highways was cruel and dangerous. The lawsuit put an end to the Alabama chain gang and another torturous practice called the "hitching post."
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Baker v. Campbell
filed 05/13/2003
Agenda area: Institutionalized persons
Due to a lack of access to doctors and long delays in diagnosis and treatment, seriously ill inmates at one of Alabama's maximum-security prisons sued to receive adequate healthcare.
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Bradley v. Haley
filed 01/15/1992
Agenda area: Institutionalized persons
Mental health experts described the conditions for Alabama's seriously mentally ill prisoners as "horrific" and "primitive." Mentally ill inmates were locked in isolation, usually without proper medication, and deprived of professional mental health services such as therapy and counseling. The Center sued and secured change for the inmates.
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Gaddis v. Campbell
filed 04/09/2003
Agenda area: Institutionalized persons
Diabetic inmates in Alabama face vision loss, convulsions, and amputations due to substandard care. Others are at risk of heart attacks, nerve damage, strokes, kidney failure, and death. The case has reached a precedent-setting settlement and is currently in a monitoring phase.
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Hope v. Pelzer
filed 02/21/2002
Agenda area: Institutionalized persons
When Alabama correctional guards handcuffed Larry Hope to a metal hitching post and left him shirtless, virtually without water, and without bathroom breaks in the Alabama sun for seven hours, they should have known that their actions were unlawful, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002.
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Johnson v. Mitchem
filed 05/27/1997
Agenda area: Institutionalized persons
Inside Chess, Harper's, Astronomy, Writer's Digest — only a few of the hundreds of publications effectively banned in 1997 under an arbitrary policy implemented by the Alabama prison's warden. The Center sued, securing an agreement protecting inmates' rights to mailed reading materials.
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Maxwell v. Haley
filed 08/13/2002
Agenda area: Institutionalized persons
The ventilation system on Alabama's death row was broken, resulting in stifling, stagnant, medically dangerous heat in the prisoners' 55-square foot cells. The Center sued to allow inmates to purchase fans at their own expense. An anonymous donor provided free fans to all death row inmates.
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Prison Legal News, et al. v. Haley
filed 05/13/1999
Agenda area: Institutionalized persons
The Alabama DOC prohibited its prisoners from receiving gift subscriptions for publications. Inmates were forced to buy subscriptions from their prison trust accounts.
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Pugh v. Locke
filed 02/26/1974
Agenda area: Institutionalized persons
Conditions in Alabama's prisons were an inhumane nightmare - violent, overcrowded and unsanitary. In a 1976 landmark ruling, a federal judge declared the prisons "wholly unfit for human habitation" and ordered detailed reforms.
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Spellman v. Hopper
filed 12/12/1995
Agenda area: Institutionalized persons
In 1995, a prison inmate confined to Alabama's segregation unit filed a pro se complaint to protect his First Amendment rights to receive newspapers and magazines. The ruling lifted a statewide ban against segregated inmates receiving outside reading materials.
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Wyatt v. Sawyer
filed 10/23/1970
Agenda area: Institutionalized persons
"Dehumanizing." "Intolerable." "Grossly deficient." These were some of the words a federal judge used to describe conditions at Alabama's mental health facilities in the 1970s. Center attorneys worked with others for years to bring Alabama into compliance with the minimum standards of care ordered by the judge.
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