Pro Bono Victory: Major Prison Reforms Result from Settlement in Ashker v. Brown Class Action
As reported in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, and other media outlets, California prisoners in solitary confinement, represented by The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), COJK litigation attorney Carmen Bremer, and other co-counsel, have obtained a settlement with California Governor Edmund “Jerry” Brown and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in the class action suit Ashker v. Brown. The Ashker settlement culminated from a movement to reform inhumane conditions in California’s prison security housing units (SHUs). This month, the plaintiff class agreed to a settlement that will fundamentally alter all aspects of this form of punishment, including dramatically reducing the solitary confinement population; ending the practice of isolating prisoners who have not violated prison rules; capping the length of time a prisoner can spend in solitary; and providing a restrictive, but not isolating alternative for the minority of prisoners who continue to violate prison rules on behalf of a gang.
The movement to reform California’s solitary confinement practices gained momentum in 2011 with a hunger strike by thousands of SHU inmates protesting their confinement and conditions at California’s Pelican Bay prison facility. The class action suit asserted 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 under the Fourteenth Amendment.
In addition to CCR and COJK, the Ashker legal team includes attorneys from around the country, including from Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, California Prison Focus, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Ellenberg & Hull, Siegel & Yee, and the Law Offices of Charles Carbone.
