Prisoner Rights and Criminal Justice
We are dedicated to ensuring that everyone in the criminal justice system receives fair treatment and access to legal services. In 2023, we proudly advocated on behalf of a youth sentenced to life in prison and an inmate suffering from extraordinary medical conditions. We argued on behalf of prisoner rights before the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and filed an amicus brief urging the US Supreme Court to hear a case about federal sentences. These are our stories.
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Client Celebrates Freedom After De Facto Life Sentence
For almost a decade, we challenged Saphonte’s sentence and in May 2023, we succeeded. Hear from Saphonte and the team on this case.
Saphonte Kuykendoll was 17 years old when he was tried as an adult and convicted of murder and home invasion. The trial judge ordered his sentences to run consecutively for a total of 90 years. Saphonte challenged his sentences for years without success while incarcerated.
In 2012, the US Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for minors without the chance of parole was unconstitutional, a decision that threw a legal lifeline to Saphonte.
For almost a decade, our team worked with Saphonte to challenge his sentence, taking his case all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court. After successfully persuading the Illinois Supreme Court that Saphonte’s 90-year sentence amounted to a de facto life sentence, Saphonte’s case was remanded to the Illinois Appellate Court, which vacated his murder sentence and remanded his case to the trial court for resentencing.
At his resentencing hearing, our team addressed a novel issue of Illinois law that arose because the Appellate Court vacated Saphonte’s murder sentence, but not his home invasion sentence. Our team argued that the sentence for the murder conviction could not run consecutively to the sentence for the home invasion conviction because, by this point, Saphonte had already served his home invasion sentence in full. The judge agreed. As a result, upon his resentencing for the murder conviction, the time-served credit Saphonte had earned meant he had served both of his sentences in full and was eligible for immediate release.
In May 2023, after more than 27 years in prison, Saphonte was released and finally given the opportunity of beginning his adult life as a free man.
“I’d given up, I was almost out of it. Jenner & Block came along and they pulled me out,” said Saphonte. “Jenner & Block has been a blessing—a miracle—a blessing. I don’t know how to describe it, but they’ve been everything for me.”
The Jenner & Block team includes Partners Clifford Berlow and Tom Quinn, Associates Hope Tone-O’Keefe, Lauren Benigeri, Emma Costello, and Elizabeth Powers, and Paralegal Fallon McDowell.
Half a Century After Marijuana Conviction, Client’s Record Expunged
Our late Partner Tom Sullivan and Partner Terri Mascherin discuss the McCabe case and its significance within Jenner & Block's pro bono legacy.
“For fifty plus years, despite the Illinois Supreme Court overturning his conviction, Tom faced uncertainty and worry every time he encountered a form or was otherwise asked to disclose if he had ever been convicted of a crime. Now in his 70s, Tom’s record is finally clear.”
Fifty-four years after Jenner & Block Partner Tom Sullivan agreed to fight Tom McCabe’s drug conviction, Illinois has expunged Mr. McCabe’s conviction.
In 1971, when Mr. McCabe was convicted of selling $40 worth of marijuana, a first conviction under the Narcotic Drug Act carried a 10-year minimum sentence. Probation was not an option. Tom Sullivan challenged the classification of marijuana at the Illinois Supreme Court and ultimately overturned the conviction.
“We hold that the present classification of marijuana is arbitrary and deprives the defendant of equal protection of the law,” the opinion read.
Now, more than 50 years later, Mr. McCabe turned to Jenner & Block to assist with expunging his conviction. Recent changes in Illinois drug laws have led to automatic expungement for some cannabis-related convictions, but these changes did not apply to Mr. McCabe.
Partner Andrew Vail and Associate Paige Zielinski, a former prosecutor, led the effort to secure Mr. McCabe’s expungement. They filed a request for the expungement and supportive materials, and secured the expungement in fall 2023.
“For 50-plus years, despite the Illinois Supreme Court overturning his conviction, Tom faced uncertainty and worry every time he encountered a form or was otherwise asked to disclose if he had ever been convicted of a crime,” Paige said. “Now, in his 70s, Tom’s record is finally clear.”
Read more here.
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Prisoner Receives Early Release Due to Ill Health
Our client suffers from a seizure disorder and a meningioma brain tumor and became confined to a wheelchair during incarceration at a federal prison in Texas. We successfully argued that that her medical conditions had become extraordinary under the Sentencing Commission’s guidelines and that she would receive the medical care she needed if she returned to the home of her mother, a retired nurse. A judge reduced our client’s original seven-year sentence to time served. When she was released on June 20, 2023, our client had served about two years.
Associate Laura Koeller led the team with supervision from Partners Chris Renner and Mark Davis. West Coast Paralegal Coordinator Chris Ward and Summer Associate Tyler Emeney assisted.
SCOTUS Takes Federal Sentencing Case, as Our Amicus Brief Recommended
As we advocated in an amicus brief, the US Supreme Court agreed to take a case that could have vast implications for federal sentencing minimums. In Eugene Jackson v. United States, Mr. Jackson asked the Court to decide what qualifies as a “serious drug offense” under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), which requires a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Mr. Jackson had two alleged “serious drug offense” convictions under a Florida state drug statute that, at the time of his prior state convictions, aligned with the then-effective federal drug schedules. However, by the time of his federal firearm offense, the federal drug schedules had been updated and his prior convictions no longer qualified as serious drug offenses. The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit—contrary to holdings in the Third, Fourth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits—held that the ACCA’s “serious drug offense” definition incorporates the federal drug schedules that were in effect at the time of the prior state drug offense, not at the time of the federal firearm conviction. This ruling subjected Mr. Jackson to ACCA’s mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Our brief supported Mr. Jackson’s certiorari petition on behalf of pro bono client Clause 40 Foundation, a nonprofit criminal justice reform organization. The brief argued that the Eleventh Circuit’s interpretation violates due process principles of fair notice by depriving people of a reasonable opportunity to understand what punishment the law provides at the time of their offense.
The brief was written by Partner Doug Litvack and former Associates Eric Fleddermann and Vincent Wu. Doug discussed the case with Gray TV and Law360.
Fourth Circuit Agrees to Eliminate “Strike” Against Client
In 2020, Kevin Pitts filed a civil rights suit challenging the “three strikes rule,” which allows inmates to file up to three frivolous lawsuits before they are barred from filing more.
The district court dismissed Mr. Pitts’s claims, holding that they were barred by precedent and that the officials named in the complaint had sovereign and prosecutorial immunity. The lower court then ruled that the lawsuit’s dismissal counted as a strike under the three strikes rule, formally called the Prison Litigation Reform Act.
We took on Mr. Pitts’s appeal with co-counsel the MacArthur Justice Center. Partner Katie Wynbrandt argued and won when the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the district court lacked authority to “prospectively adjudicate a strike.”
“The question here is whether a district court dismissing a prisoner complaint is authorized, at that time, to rule that its dismissal is a ‘strike’ for purposes of future litigation,” the opinion said.
Partner Ian Heath Gershengorn supervised the case.
Associate’s Inaugural Argument Before Seventh Circuit Yields Optimism for Prisoner
“It was an honor to get to argue such an important issue before the Seventh Circuit. I’m hopeful that it will see the injustice in the treatment in this case and provide the appellant with relief. Nothing can undo years of placement in solitary confinement, but I believe he will get the justice to which he is entitled.”
Our lawyers are dedicated to ensuring that all prisoners are treated with respect and dignity. In her inaugural argument before the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Associate Mary Marshall did just that.
In this case, a prisoner representing himself alleged that he had been held in conditions akin to solitary confinement for more than 600 days without timely hearings. The court appointed Mary to brief and argue, as amicus, the prisoner’s 14th Amendment procedural due process claim.
Mary faced complications and obstacles, including the question of whether her client had provided enough details about the conditions of his confinement, and the issues of sufficient state law procedures and post-deprivation remedies. She fielded tough questions presented by the panel regarding the appropriate role of state law in the federal constitutional analysis, substantiating her argument with several complex bodies of precedent, including specific case citations.
While the case is still awaiting a decision, Mary remains optimistic that her argument made a lasting impact on the court.
“It was an honor to get to argue such an important issue before the Seventh Circuit,” she said. “I’m hopeful that it will see the injustice in the treatment in this case and provide the appellant with relief. Nothing can undo years of placement in solitary confinement, but I believe he will get the justice to which he is entitled.”
Victory Helps Plaintiff Show Unconstitutional Healthcare in Illinois Prison System
Our client now has access to important documents that could help his case, thanks to a Jenner team’s court victory. Our client sued Wexford Health Sources, for inadequate medical care that resulted in his wife’s death from bladder cancer in 2020. On May 4, 2023, in a separate long-running class action against the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC), a judge granted our motion to intervene to discover the identities of IDOC inmates who were treated by Wexford, a for-profit system that IDOC contracts to provide medical care for inmates. Filed in July 2010, the class action alleged that more than 50,000 prisoners suffered from Wexford’s inadequate medical and dental care. In 2017, IDOC’s former medical director filed a report documenting extensive problems with the prison system’s healthcare. Our victory paves the way for plaintiffs whose cases seek to remedy similar harm. The team included Partners Mike Doornweerd and Lina Powell; Special Counsel Ali Alsarraf; Associates Mike Kang, Jocelyn Sitton, Elena Olivieri, Emma Costello, and Kai Luan; and Paralegals Kevin Garcia and Sophia Goebel.
Formerly Incarcerated Individual Gains Support to Launch New Life
In New York, individuals who have recently been released from federal prison are assisted in rebuilding their lives after incarceration through the Southern District of New York’s innovative Re-entry through Intensive Supervision and Employment (RISE) Court. In early 2023, we helped a RISE participant eliminate crushing debt and take steps toward stability and success.
Our client had accrued more than $42,000 in child support debt over his 16-year incarceration, and he faced daunting consequences. His driver’s license was suspended, his wages were being garnished, and his total debt was more than twice his annual income. We collaborated with other RISE stakeholders, including the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit judge assigned to our RISE Court, probation officers from the Southern District of New York, lawyers and social workers from the Federal Defenders of New York, and pro bono counsel from other participating law firms. We confirmed the precise amount of our client’s debt and identified possible avenues to reduce or eliminate it. First, we learned that the city had overstated his total debt because, as the result of a simple administrative error, child support had continued to accrue even after his son turned 18. We also learned that our client was in regular contact with his son’s other parent, who had no interest in collecting the unpaid child support she was technically owed. Eventually, we contacted a sympathetic official from the New York City Department of Social Services, who agreed to expedite the process of adjusting our client’s outstanding debts. We subsequently appeared with our client at a hearing before a judge in the Bronx County Family Court. As a result of these efforts, all $42,000 of our client’s debt was eliminated. Our client’s driver’s license was reinstated shortly thereafter, allowing him to find more stable and lucrative work.
The team included Partners Jeremy Creelan and Michael Ross and Associates Adina Hemley-Bronstein, Alex Ryshina, Andy Whinery, and Michael Greubel.