Cases
Rights Behind Bars has won more than 100 cases in the Federal Circuit Courts. Our briefs are linked on their respective case pages. If they are helpful to you as an attorney or pro se litigator, please feel welcome to use them.
Harvell v. Rigney, et al.
Mr. Harvell was incarcerated at a Nevada state prison when correctional officers entered his cell and beat while he was handcuffed. Mr. Harvell filed Eighth Amendment excessive force claims against two officers who beat him and a third who failed to intervene.
Montanez v. Price, et al.
Mr. Montanez collapsed in his cell and lost all sensation from the chest down. Rather than sending him to a hospital, prison staff laughed off his request for emergency care, left him to drag his paralyzed body across his cell floor, and abandoned him for three days before he received an MRI revealing spinal cord stenosis and edema requiring surgery.
Evans v. Smith
Mr. Evans was left in leg restraints for 15 hours after being returned to his cell — with no penological justification whatsoever. He spent the better part of those 15 hours standing at his cell door calling out for help. He sued under the Eight Amendment.
Kinard v. Florida Department of Corrections, et al.
Mr. Kinard was denied adequate medical care and disability accommodations after fracturing his foot. He filed suit, bringing claims under the ADA, Rehabilitation Act, and Eighth Amendment.
Brown v. Stapleton, et al
While incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison, Demmerick Brown went to the prison barbershop to get a shave and a haircut. Because of the pandemic, he was wearing a face mask, and the barber told him to remove it for the shave. Mr, Brown did. On this basis, a guard filed a disciplinary charge against Brown, Brown was convicted of a rule violation, and he was fined fifteen dollars.
Durham v. G. Kelley, et al
After a diagnosis with lumbar stenosis Mr. Durham has been limited in his ability to ambulate and was prescribed a cane to allow him to walk without extreme pain. Despite this diagnosis and prescription, officials in the Trenton facility ordered Mr. Durham to abandon his cane in his cell when he was transferred to a quarantine unit. They then continued to deny him access to his cane for approximately ten days. They did this despite numerous different requests from Mr. Durham for his cane to nurses, doctors, and correctional officers, and despite his reports of excruciating pain when he was forced to walk without his cane.
Bobo v. Ericsons
Donnie Bobo was incarcerated at a Michigan prison when he began experiencing excruciating dental pain. Over the following months, the prison dentist saw him multiple times but provided no pain medication and did not arrange for him to see a specialist.
Brown v. Meisner, et al.
After injuring his knee in a fall at one Wisconsin prison, Lee Brown was transferred to another facility where his previously granted accommodations—a lower bunk, a wheelchair, and crutches—were not continued. He fell again while climbing to a top bunk, and was told he needed surgery that the prison would not provide.
Hall v. Higgins
Mr. Hall has been paralyzed from the waist down since 2012 and requires a wheelchair for mobility. Jail staff repeatedly refused to assist him in accessing his bed, the toilet, and medical appointments, citing "protocol."
Snowden v. Henning
Seventh Circuit case on behalf of a man who had a DEA agent tackle and punch him in the face during a routine arrest, fracturing his eye socket
Hageman v. Billups
Mr. Hageman was quietly reading his bible in his cell when five correctional officers forcibly removed him from his bunk and took him to segregation, nominally not because he had done anything wrong but for his own protection. Although he was not resisting, they handcuffed him and pulled on the chain, breaking his wrist and cutting his hands.
Parker v. LeBlanc
Our client served 337 days in prison past his mandatory release date. We're proud to have argued the case in the Fifth Circuit, which ruled that this constitutional violation was clearly stablished, overcoming qualified immunity
Getzen v. Long
Rights Behind Bars and the Legal Defense Fund represented David Getzen in a qualified immunity case after Mr. Getzen was subjected to an unlawful use of force.
Shaw v. Kemper et. al.
Mr. Shaw, a wheelchair user, was unable to access the prison’s only handicapped-accessible toilet on multiple occasions because it was in use. Mr. Shaw’s lawsuit was dismissed by the district court at screening. The court characterized his inability to access a handicapped toilet as a mere "inconvenience" of prison life.
Moderwell v. Cuyahoga County, Ohio
Rights Behind Bars has won an appeal in the Sixth Circuit on behalf of Larry Johnson, a pretrial detainee at Cuyahoga County Correctional Center in Cleveland who committed suicide under the watch of corrections officers.
Seidner v. De Vries
Rights Behind Bars, together with the NAACP, represent a cyclist who was brutally rammed by a police car without warning or provocation, on the basis that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
Wheat v. Day
Rights Behind Bars represents Christopher Wheat, a pretrial detainee at Walton County Jail, on appeal for his § 1983 action against Deputy Day, a corrections officer who tasered him from behind as punishment for spilling water in his cell. Day moved for summary judgment following discovery on the basis of qualified immunity, and appealed when his motion was denied.
RBB wins rare Supreme Court qualified immunity reversal
In an extraordinary win for prisoner’s rights and all who oppose qualified immunity, the Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit in Taylor v. Riojas, emphasizing that “no reasonable correctional officer could have concluded that, under the extreme circumstances of this case, it was constitutionally permissible to house Taylor in such deplorably unsanitary conditions for such an extended period of time.”
Shorter v. United States, et al.
Rights Behind Bars represents Chrissy Shorter, a transgender woman who was sexually assaulted while incarcerated at a federal prison in New Jersey. Shorter brought an 8th Amendment claim pro se against the prison for failing to take preventative actions to protect her from sexual assault even after her request for transfer to a safer institution had been approved.
Melnik v. Dzurenda
Rights Behind Bars, together with O’Melveny & Myers, represent John Melnik, an individual incarcerated at Nevada Desert State Prison who was denied the opportunity to present documentary evidence in his defense for a disciplinary charge. Because he was denied the opportunity to present this evidence, Melnik is currently facing three years in punitive solitary confinement.