Denver, CO: Yesterday, incarcerated people in Colorado won a major legal victory when a Denver District Court judge held a lawsuit alleging widespread use of coercive and cruel tactics to compel incarcerated people to work may proceed as a class action. Plaintiffs Richard Lilgerose and Harold Mortis filed the first-of-its kind lawsuit in 2022 on behalf of all state prisoners subjected to forced labor. The suit alleges the state persistently violates Amendment A—a voter-approved constitutional amendment that prohibits the state from engaging in slavery or involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. Towards Justice and Maxted Law LLC represent the plaintiffs.
The passage of Amendment A made Colorado a national leader in eradicating the so-called “penal exemption,” a racist stain present in state constitutions and in the U.S. Constitution’s Thirteenth Amendment. Since the passage of Amendment A, other states have followed suit, including Alabama, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Tennessee, and Vermont.
In granting class certification to the Plaintiffs, the Court relied on evidence the Colorado Department of Corrections uses a variety of punishments to compel labor, including increased confinement, the potential of transfer, more time in prison, and reduced ability to contact family and community support.
The judge noted that the evidence reflects “inmates being held in their cells more than twenty hours a day for failing to work.” In addition, the Polis administration admits “one sanction for failure to work is to switch the custody level of the inmate—even though failure to work is not a safety and security issue. There is evidence that inmates are transferred to higher security, more dangerous facilities, with many more constraints for failure to work.”
“It’s time for Colorado to end unconstitutional forced labor in our state prisons,” said attorney David Maxted of Maxted Law LLC. “The use of punishment, locking people in conditions akin to solitary confinement, and other tools to coerce involuntary labor is not only wrong, it violates the Constitution. This grant of class certification is a step toward justice.”
“The fact someone is incarcerated does not mean the state gets to treat them like a slave,” said Valerie Collins of Towards Justice. “This case isn’t about ending all prison work, or even about payment of wages. Our clients just want to stop the state from extracting labor through coercion. Class certification is a significant step towards ending forced labor in Colorado.”
“We are disappointed that instead of working together with lawmakers, community, and advocates on a prison work program that doesn’t involve coercion and involuntary servitude in violation of Amendment A, the Governor continues to expend state resources fighting this in court,” said Kym Ray, Community Organizer at End Slavery Colorado. “We hope the court’s opinion serves as a wake-up call to the Polis administration.”