PRISONER RIGHTS & CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Our lawyers are dedicated to ensuring that those in our criminal justice system are treated fairly and receive the representation they deserve. For years, we have worked to fight injustices and in 2022, proudly advocated on behalf of Guantánamo Detainee Majid Khan, death row inmate Michael Nance, Illinois prisoners, South Carolina Juvenile Justice Center detainees, and others.
Longtime Client Majid Khan Released from Guantánamo to Begin New Life in Belize
A year after completing his sentence, a Guantánamo Bay detainee who was tortured by the CIA was released and resettled in Belize on February 2, 2023.
Katya Jestin, Majid, and Wells Dixon from the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Katya receives her first phone call from Majid as a free man upon his release in Belize.
Katya and Partner Matt Hellman joined Majid and others for a group shot the day after his release.
Majid and Katya meet the evening of his release.
Jenner & Block has advocated on behalf of Guantánamo Bay detainees, pro bono, since 2005. Our late Partner Tom Sullivan and Of Counsel Jeff Colman, and Partners David Bradford and Wade Thomson were among the first lawyers in the United States to represent detainees who were being held without charges there.
Majid, a Pakistani citizen and legal US resident who went to high school in Maryland, was captured in 2003 and suffered horrific torture at CIA black sites before his transfer to Guantánamo Bay in 2006.
In late 2009, Co-Managing Partner Katya Jestin joined with the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Military Commissions Defense Organization to represent Majid.
In 2012, he pled guilty to various offenses and cooperated for over a decade with US authorities. His torture was documented in a US Senate Intelligence Committee report in 2014, and he detailed both his contrition for his conduct and his torture before a military jury and the world in October 2021.
In an interview with The National Journal about Majid, Katya said, “We are not a nation that tortures prisoners. This was a sharp deviation from who we are as a country in terms of our democratic roots and our adherence to the rule of law and our adherence to international conventions...I think it is important that there’s sunlight and that fellow Americans understand what happened, and that there’s some measure of accountability and transparency about it so that we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Majid’s commissions sentence ended on March 1, 2022.
In February 2023, Majid was finally released from Guantánamo Bay and resettled in Belize to begin a new life with his wife and teenage daughter, whom he has never met.
“After 16 years in Guantánamo, Majid Khan will finally have the opportunity to live his life as a free man,” Katya said. “This is a historic victory for human rights and the rule of law, but one that took far too long to reach. Having cooperated with the government for over a decade, Majid’s commitment to contrition and cooperation never wavered. Majid honored his obligations, but the government delayed in holding up its end of the bargain. We are very grateful that that delay is now over, and that Majid is free.”
“Guantánamo is a national shame, and we hope that today is another step forward towards its ultimate closure. The men languishing in Guantánamo who have been cleared for release must be transferred; indefinite detention is anathema to a just society,” said Katya. “Closing Guantánamo would go a long way toward reclaiming the values that our country was founded upon and that have never been more important than today. As lawyers, we have an obligation to uphold the rule of law, irrespective of the political climate. I’m proud of our work on Majid’s behalf, which I believe to be in the best tradition of the bar.”
More than 80 lawyers and paralegals at the firm, including Appellate Group Co-Chair Matthew Hellman, dedicated over 6,500 hours of time to the case since 2009.
Katya continues to champion the cause of closing Guantánamo Bay.
In December 2021, she testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee saying, “Guantánamo has caused harm to all whom it has touched, and its continued existence undermines our national values and international moral standing. Closing Guantánamo is imperative and long overdue. We must heal the self-inflicted wound that is Guantánamo, consistent with our national security interests and the rule of law.”
Click the image to read the full filing in the Northern District of Illinois.
Shining a Light on the Inhumane Conditions of Illinois Prisoners and South Carolina Juvenile Justice Center Detainees
Lawsuits filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and for the District of South Carolina reveal the egregious living conditions for approximately 1,000 prisoners at the Northern Reception Center in Crest Hill, IL and for the more than 250 children detained by the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice.
The lawsuit in Illinois, filed jointly by Jenner & Block and the Uptown People’s Law Center, reported the appalling conditions at the prison, including infestations of rats, mice, flies, and cockroaches; plumbing that frequently spills raw sewage into cells, communal showers, and even the kitchen; and under-cooked, spoiled, and insufficient amounts of food. The lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of the prisoners, asks the courts to declare that the Illinois Department of Corrections violated the prisoners’ constitutionally protected rights and require action to improve conditions in the prison.
Click the image to read the full filing in the District of South Carolina.
“We want to shine a light on the inhumane conditions at the Northern Reception Center; it’s time to amplify prisoners’ voices and force change at this facility,” said Jenner & Block Partner Benjamin Bradford.
Benjamin is leading the team on this case along with Partners Terri Mascherin and Associates Lindsey Lusk and Garrett Salzman. Other team members include Associates Alex Cottingham, Emily Merrifield, Steven Tinetti, and Vincent Wu.
The lawsuit in South Carolina, filed jointly by Jenner & Block, the ACLU of South Carolina, the NAACP, and the law firm Wyche, alleged that the children held in Department of Juvenile Justice facilities are routinely subjected to violence, months-long isolation in solitary confinement, and a lack of meaningful educational or mental health services. The lawsuit, which was brought on behalf of the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, Disability Rights South Carolina, and Justice 360, asks the courts to declare that the department violated the constitutional rights of South Carolina children and require judicial intervention to facilitate immediate remedies.
Partner Jeremy Creelan is leading the South Carolina effort along with Partners Will Weaver and Jake Alderdice. Associates Amit Patel, Mary Marshall, and Jessica Sawadogo, Paralegal Adam Weidman, and former Partner Previn Warren, also assisted the team.
Both matters remain ongoing.
Dating to the Earliest Days of Our Pro Bono Program, Support for Prisoners’ Rights Remains Strong
Prisoners who need access to justice have found for decades that Jenner & Block is committed to ensuring that everyone, no matter their income or circumstances, can pursue legal redress. Indeed, the firm’s pro bono program grew from the efforts of three lawyers who represented indigent criminal defendants in Chicago in the 1950s. That work continues today, even at the highest court in the land.
“We’re very gratified by the Court’s decision, which confirms that prisoners have judicial recourse to seek protection from cruel and unusual punishment.”
– Partner Matthew Hellman, who argued Nance v. Ward before the Supreme Court.
On June 23, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of client Michael Nance, a death row inmate who is seeking to die by firing squad instead of by lethal injection. The 5-4 majority opinion allows Michael to challenge his execution by lethal injection under Section 1983, a federal civil rights law that allows individuals to seek remedies when their constitutional rights are violated.
“We’re very gratified by the Court’s decision, which confirms that prisoners have judicial recourse to seek protection from cruel and unusual punishment,” said Partner Matthew Hellman, who argued Nance v. Ward before the Supreme Court.
Partner Matthew Hellman led the team. He was assisted by Associate Deanna Krokos and former Associates Kevin Kennedy and Urja Mittal. The team also included Partners Jessica Ring Amunson, Ian Heath Gershengorn, Lindsay Harrison, Lauren Hartz, and Adam Unikowsky, and former Partner Tassity Johnson.
Later last summer, client Rodney Lambirth, a federal prisoner suffering from Stage IV prostate cancer with a prognosis of less than a year to live, won compassionate release with Jenner & Block’s assistance. Prior to the firm taking his case, Rodney filed two compassionate release motions, but the court found that he failed to state an extraordinary and compelling circumstance for release.
Pro Bono Counsel Nura Maznavi and Pro Bono Partnership Lawyer Angelina Smith argued that the metastasis of our client’s cancer and terminal diagnosis fit squarely within the Sentencing Commission’s guidelines on what constitutes an extraordinary and compelling reason for release. Judge David Counts in the Western District of Texas agreed and ordered Rodney’s sentence reduced to time served.
Nura and Angelina were supervised by Partner Andrew Vail and assisted by Associates Tim Yuhasz and Deanna Krokos.
Even when the outcome isn’t desired, our clients are grateful for our advocacy. Such was the case with Ronald Walker, a resident at an Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) mental health treatment center who sought compassionate release due to IDHS’ failure to perform a sleep apnea test, despite his significant symptoms consistent with that condition and request to be tested.
Associates Lindsey Lusk and Mari Carmen Gonzalez and former Associate Annie Mitran Brennan began building a case on behalf of Ronald last fall.
Lindsey, Annie, and Mari located evidence to use at trial, made a nine-hour round trip drive to see Ronald in person, and handled every aspect of the pretrial order and conference. During a four-day trial in the Central District of Illinois, the associates and Partner Benjamin Bradford advocated on Ronald’s behalf. Paralegal David Nelson supported the team. After four hours of jury deliberations, unusual for this type of case, the burden to show deliberate indifference proved to be too high. Ronald profusely thanked the team for their support.
Challenging Cases in Louisiana's Prison System Do Not Deter Firm Teams
Supporting three clients in the Louisiana prison system, Jenner & Block lawyers provided compassion and commitment in the face of sometimes high legal hurdles. The outcomes were not as hoped, but our teams were proud to lend their skills where they were needed most.
In these cases, we partnered with the Promise of Justice Initiative (PJI), a non-profit organization based in New Orleans that undertook a massive campaign to support the more than 1,500 Louisiana prison inmates convicted by non-unanimous juries. In 2020, the US Supreme Court held in Ramos v. Louisiana that non-unanimous jury verdicts for felonies violated the Sixth Amendment. However, in 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. Vannoy that Ramos would apply retroactively under the US Constitution only to cases pending on direct appeal. After that decision, efforts turned to obtaining a ruling from the Louisiana Supreme Court that Ramos would apply retroactively to all cases under the Louisiana Constitution. Unfortunately, in 2022, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled against retroactivity on the grounds of the State’s reasonable reliance for decades on decisions permitting state-court non-unanimous verdicts and the substantial burden on the administration of justice that would result from requiring retrials of potentially more than 1,000 cases many years after the original convictions. This ruling came in spite of the Court’s acknowledgement that entitlement to a unanimous jury verdict is a fundamental right and that Louisiana’s practice of allowing non-unanimous convictions was racist in its origin.
In one case, Partner Neil Barofsky and Associate Owen Keiter worked with PJI to file a post-conviction relief application seeking to vacate the conviction of their client, who was convicted by a non-unanimous jury of a robbery charge. When the application was denied, Neil and Owen persistently appealed it. The team also sought to negotiate with the district attorney whose office prosecuted their client. Unfortunately, while the client’s case was pending, both the US Supreme Court and Louisiana Supreme Court held that individuals convicted by non-unanimous juries in violation of the US Constitution are unable to seek relief from these convictions. His case was dismissed.
In a second case, Partner James Malysiak and PJI sought to obtain a new trial for their client who in 2013 was convicted of second-degree murder by a non-unanimous Louisiana state court jury. The conviction carried an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole. The client, who was 20 when convicted, admitted participating in a drug-related robbery but denied knowing that one of his associates had a gun. He was convicted by an all-white jury, which unanimously acquitted him of obstruction of justice for allegedly attempting to conceal the crime.
Partner Elizabeth Edmondson and Associates Kelsey Stimple and Jonathan Steinberg provided similar support in an effort to secure relief for their client before both the Louisiana state court and the Louisiana Board of Pardon and Committee on Parole. After a hearing before the Board was scheduled for the client, the team partnered with the Louisiana Parole Project to assist him in this effort, while continuing to work with PJI on the non-unanimous jury verdict aspect of the case. The team’s advocacy before the Board included collecting 16 letters of support, conducting a mock hearing, and interviewing the client multiple times about sensitive issues to provide a detailed, compelling account about how he turned his life around in prison. Kelsey made an articulate oral argument before the Board. While they were unsuccessful in securing his pardon, their work provided the client with strong and persuasive advocacy materials that may be helpful in future proceedings and allowed him and his family to move through the processes well-prepared and with dignity. The team is continuing their efforts to negotiate with the district attorney.