PUTTING A STOP TO ILLEGAL TORTURE AND ABUSE AT PRIVATE PRISONS
In 2021, BHB sued Management & Training Corporation (“MTC”), a private prison operator, on behalf of Carlos Murillo Vega for abusive and torturous practices at Imperial Regional Detention Facility. On April 19, 2023, a federal court denied MTC’s motion for summary judgment on Mr. Murillo’s claims, holding that MTC cannot escape trial or avoid punitive damages for keeping a civil detainee in solitary confinement without justification for fourteen months. As the evidence showed, MTC confined Mr. Murillo in a “jail cell so small that he could almost touch both walls” where he spent 23 hours a day alone for 14 months, in contravention of federal standards. The court found that MTC had- engaged in “outrageous conduct” and acted with “reckless disregard” by subjecting our client to over a year of solitary confinement when he was detained there. The court also held that Mr. Murillo had presented “substantial” evidence that MTC’s use of solitary confinement for people in protective custody violated ICE standards. The court squarely denied MTC’s motion for summary judgment, granting Mr. Murillo his day in court, allowing him to seek punitive damages, and forcing MTC to reckon with its outrageous conduct.
In the wake of our summary judgment victory, MTC—an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention contractor—was incentivized to settle with our client for wrongly holding him in solitary confinement for over a year. This immigration justice case resulted in BHB being honored with the 2024 Father Cuchulain Moriarty Award by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Partner Organizations: Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, UCLA Law: The Promise Institute for Human Rights, and The California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice
Important Documents:
Media Coverage: KQED, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, NBC News, Law360, and UNIVISION.