CCR Obtains Victory in Solitary Confinement Case
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) obtained a victory on March 9, 2015, when Judge Claudia Wilken, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, granted CCR’s motion for leave to file a supplemental complaint in Ashker v. Brown. The ruling allows inclusion in the class of those prisoners who were moved from the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay to the SHU at the California Correctional Institute at Tehachapi, and other SHUs in the state.
The legal action is part of a larger movement to reform inhumane conditions in California prisons’ SHUs. The movement was initiated by a 2011 hunger strike by thousands of SHU inmates protesting their confinement and conditions at the Pelican Bay facility. The class action suit asserts that prolonged solitary confinement violates Eighth Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment, and that the absence of meaningful review for SHU placement violates the inmates’ right to due process.
The CCR legal team includes attorneys from around the country, including Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, California Prison Focus, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Ellenberg & Hull, Siegel & Yee, the Law Offices of Charles Carbone, and COJK litigation attorney Carmen Bremer.
