Lawsuit challenges constitutionality of punishing people who resist forced labor in Alabama’s majority-Black prisons

November 20, 2024, Montgomery, AL – Yesterday, five incarcerated workers brought their effort to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude in Alabama’s prisons to the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals. They are challenging the Montgomery County Circuit Court’s dismissal of their lawsuit, in which they charge that state laws and policies violate the state constitution’s prohibition on slavery and involuntary servitude in prison. 

The plaintiffs – Traveka Stanley, Reginald Burrell, Charlie Gray, Melvin Pringle, and Ranquel Smith – have all been punished or threatened with punishment for not working within Alabama prisons or for public and private employers that contract with the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) for incarcerated people’s labor. With their lawsuit, the first of its kind, the plaintiffs seek enforcement of a state constitutional provision banning slavery and involuntary servitude with no exceptions, including for those sentenced to prison, which voters approved in 2022 following a statewide strike by incarcerated workers. 

In August, the trial court dismissed the case with a two-sentence order, claiming that state sovereign immunity shielded the defendants – Governor Kay Ivey and ADOC Commissioner John Hamm – from the suit and that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring their constitutional claims. In a brief filed today on their behalf by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the plaintiffs contest both bases for dismissal. 

“The trial court got it wrong – the law is clearly on our clients’ side, and their case should be allowed to go forward,” said Jessica Vosburgh, Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “The Alabama courts must rise to their obligation to enforce the state constitution’s command ‘That no form of slavery shall exist in this state; and there shall not be any involuntary servitude.’ No exceptions.” 

A notorious prison system, Alabama’s is the most overcrowded in the country, operating at over 168 percent capacity, and, while Black people make up 26 percent of the state population, they account for 53 percent of the prison population. A sixth plaintiff, Dexter Avery, who was part of the original group that filed the lawsuit, died in ADOC custody on August 19, 2024. His was one of over 150 deaths in ADOC custody during the 2024 state fiscal year.

Incarcerated people are routinely punished for declining to work within Alabama prisons or for the many public and private employers that contract with ADOC; such punishment can include loss of earned good time credit, solitary confinement, transfer to a higher-security and more violent prison, and loss of contact with loved ones. 

“When state officials opt for what’s fastest and easiest, ignoring the law they are required to follow, Alabamians must be able to hold them accountable. I look forward to getting to the heart of this lawsuit so that the truth about working conditions in ADOC can be brought to light,” said plaintiff Traveka Stanley.

“The most influential decisionmakers in the State of Alabama government remain loyal to slavery ideologies from the Confederacy, resulting in the government turning against the intent of its citizens who by majority vote enacted by the legislature prohibited slavery also for people convicted of crimes in the state’s prison system,” said plaintiff Reginald Burrell in the Center for Constitutional Rights’ September 2024 UN Submission of Evidence Pertaining to Practices of Slavery, Involuntary Servitude, and Other Forms of Forced Labor of Incarcerated Persons in the Southern Region of the United States [LINK HERE], co-authored with the Promise of Justice Initiative. “That's a lost cause.”  

In 2022, Alabama voters overwhelmingly ratified a new version of their state constitution that no longer includes a loophole that permitted slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. The so-called punishment loophole, which still exists in the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as well as in many state constitutions, has prompted various campaigns in recent years to reform state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution to remove the loophole. On November 5th, California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have amended the state constitution to prohibit forced prison labor, while Nevada became the sixth state since 2018 where voters approved such a measure. The situation in Alabama shows that the work to abolish prison slavery does not end with a change to the constitution; as this lawsuit shows, state officers must change ADOC’s everyday systemic policies and practices to enforce the constitutional change. 

If successful, this appeal will allow the challenge to forced labor in Alabama prisons to proceed before the trial court. 

For more information, please visit the Center for Constitutional Rights’ case page.