[Ppnews] Court Vindicates Prisoners in Right to Challenge CMUs

[Political Prisoner News]

Court Vindicates Prisoners in Right to Challenge 
Federal Experimental Isolation Units Restricting Communication

Center for Constitutional Rights Wins Over 
Government Motion to Dismiss Case Involving 
Segregated Units That Target Muslims, Activists

CONTACT: press at ccrjustice.org

March 30, 2011, New York – Today, prisoners in 
two experimental federal prison units called 
“Communications Management Units” (CMUs) won the 
right to have their day in court and challenge 
the violation of their fundamental constitutional 
rights, including the right to due process. The 
units are being used overwhelmingly to hold 
Muslim prisoners and prisoners with unpopular 
political beliefs. The Center for Constitutional 
Rights (CCR) filed the case on their behalf 
exactly one year ago on March 30, 2010.

Said CCR Attorney Alexis Agathocleous, “Today, 
Judge Urbina has agreed that our clients have 
raised serious constitutional questions about the 
CMUs, and has vindicated their right to a day in 
court to pursue their claims. Our clients were 
designated to the CMUs without due process or 
oversight, even though they have no significant 
history of disciplinary infractions. This led to 
pattern of retaliatory designations to the CMUs. 
In a significant victory for our clients, the 
court will now scrutinize the BOP’s actions.”

Said plaintiff Hedaya Jayyousi, “I am deeply 
gratified that the court will hear our claims. My 
husband has been held under these conditions for 
years without a proper explanation. My children 
and I hope that we will now be given some answers.”

Transfers to the CMU are not explained, nor are 
prisoners told how release into less restrictive 
confinement may be earned as there is no 
meaningful review process. The court agreed the 
plaintiffs had alleged conditions in the CMUs 
that were sufficiently restrictive to support 
their claim that they have a “liberty interest” 
in having the right to procedural due process.

The court wrote, “In light of the plaintiffs 
factual allegations supporting their contention 
that reviews provided by the defendants are 
‘illusory’ and meaningless, the court determines 
that they have adequately alleged there is a high 
risk that the procedures used by the defendants 
have resulted in erroneous deprivations of their liberty interests.”

Lawyers say that because these transfers are not 
based on facts or discipline for infractions, a 
pattern of religious and political discrimination 
and retaliation for prisoners’ lawful advocacy has emerged.

The court allowed the claims of violation of due 
process as well as of retaliation to go forward. 
The court found that plaintiff Royal Jones made 
serious allegations that cannot be dismissed that 
he was put into the CMU in retaliation for 
protected speech, and speaking out and filing 
complaints about improper prison conditions. 
Similarly, the court found that allegations that 
plaintiff Daniel McGowan was twice designated to 
the CMU in retaliation for social justice 
advocacy and for seeking legal information from 
his attorneys could not be dismissed.

The court further refused to allow the BOP to 
evade review by transferring the Center for 
Constitutional Rights’ clients from the CMU. The 
court dismissed several of the claims raised by 
the lawsuit, including claims of equal 
protection, substantive due process, and freedom of association.

CCR filed Aref v. Holder in the D.C. District 
Court on behalf of current and former prisoners 
of the units in Terre Haute, IN and Marion, IL; 
two other plaintiffs are the spouses of those 
prisoners. The CMUs were secretly opened under 
the Bush administration in 2006 and 2007 
respectively and were designed to monitor and 
control the communications of certain prisoners 
and to isolate them from other prisoners and the 
outside world. The five plaintiffs in Aref were 
designated to the two CMUs despite having 
relatively or totally clean disciplinary 
histories, and none of the plaintiffs have 
received any communications-related disciplinary 
infractions in the last decade. Between 65 and 72 
percent of CMU prisoners are Muslim men.

In addition to heavily restricted telephone and 
visitation access, CMU prisoners are 
categorically denied any physical contact with 
family members and are forbidden from hugging, 
touching or embracing their children or spouses during visits.

For information about CCR’s federal lawsuit 
around CMUs, visit the 
<http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/aref-et-al-v-holder-et-al>Aref, 
et al v. Holder, et al 
<http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/aref-et-al-v-holder-et-al>case 
page or www.ccrjustice.org/cmu.

The law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP and 
attorney Kenneth A. Kreuscher are co-counsel in the case.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated 
to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed 
by the United States Constitution and the 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 
1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights 
movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal 
and educational organization committed to the 
creative use of law as a positive force for social change.




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