Prison & jail conditions
People held in jails and prisons depend entirely on the state for their safety, their medical care, and the basic conditions of their confinement. When officials are deliberately indifferent to that responsibility, and someone is harmed or dies, the firm brings claims under Section 1983 to hold them accountable. This is a large part of the firm’s civil-rights docket.
Overview
The Constitution sets a floor for how people in custody must be treated. The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit deliberate indifference to a serious medical need, the use of excessive force, and conditions that deprive a person of basic human needs. Proving a violation is demanding: the law requires showing that officials knew of a substantial risk and disregarded it, not merely that they were careless.
We represent incarcerated people and the families of those who have died in custody, in claims against corrections officers, sheriffs, jail and prison administrators, and the private companies contracted to provide medical care behind bars. All four of the firm’s civil rights attorneys work these cases.
Initial consultation is free. Most civil rights matters are handled on a contingency basis: you owe no attorney fee unless we recover for you.
Deliberate indifference to medical needs
A large share of jail and prison harm comes from untreated or mistreated illness: a serious condition that guards and medical staff ignore, medication that is stopped or withheld, an emergency that goes unanswered. When a person with an obvious, serious medical need is met with indifference rather than care, and suffers or dies as a result, that can violate the Constitution.
Because medical care in many Georgia facilities is delivered by private contractors, these claims often reach both the government and the company paid to provide care. The firm works with medical experts to establish the standard that was owed and how the failure to meet it caused the harm.
Use of force in jails and prisons
Force used against a person in custody has to be reasonable and proportional. When officers use force to punish, retaliate, or control a situation that called for none, and cause injury or death, the firm pursues the officers and the supervisors and policies that allowed it. These cases turn on incident reports, body-camera and facility video, medical records, and the accounts of other people who were present.
Solitary confinement and restrictive housing
Prolonged isolation in solitary confinement or a Special Management Unit can cause serious, lasting harm, and conditions in restrictive housing (inadequate medical and mental-health care, unsafe cells, neglect) are often the worst in a facility. The firm represents people held in these units and brings conditions-of-confinement claims where the treatment crosses the constitutional line.
In-custody deaths
The most serious of these cases end in death: from untreated illness, unchecked violence, or dangerous conditions a facility knew about and did nothing to fix. The firm represents families in wrongful-death and Section 1983 claims after a death in custody. It secured a $5 million settlement (opens in new tab) for the family of a man who died in state custody, believed to be the largest the State of Georgia has paid for a prisoner’s death, and it continues to litigate fatal-neglect and fatal-force cases against corrections defendants across the state.
Records and evidence
Much of the evidence in a conditions case (video, incident reports, medical charts, staffing and grievance records) is held by the government and its contractors, and it does not always survive. Preserving it early, and holding defendants to account when they fail to, is central to this work. In one of the firm’s cases, a federal court sanctioned a state agency after it destroyed video of a fatal in-custody stabbing, allowing the family’s case to proceed.
Coverage: MSGF’s prison and jail work has been covered by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Daily Report, and others. See our news and case results.
Representative results
A settlement for the family of a man who died in the custody of the State of Georgia.
A settlement with the State of Georgia resolving a claim that a person in custody was denied care for a serious medical need.
A settlement for the family of a man who died in the custody of the State of Georgia.
Representative work
Briefs and filings in this area, with the documents as filed.
Supreme Court amicus brief for the Cato Institute on federal accountability
Filed with the Cato Institute in support of a federal prisoner who sued the prison nurse he says ignored his fractured tailbone. The brief argues that damages against the individual officer were the default remedy for constitutional violations at the Founding, and asks the Court to affirm.
Read the filingAmicus brief for Georgia medical providers on hormone therapy in state prisons
Filed with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan on behalf of five Georgia medical providers, in an appeal over a state law that bars all hormone therapy for incarcerated adults diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The brief explains the standard of care and argues that a blanket ban replaces individual medical judgment with a categorical rule the Eighth Amendment does not permit.
Read the filing