1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Death row inmate held in solitary confinement…

Criminal Justice

Death row inmate held in solitary confinement for 26 years can sue, federal appeals court rules

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 26, 2024, 9:22 am CDT

A death row inmate with a known history of serious mental illness can sue Pennsylvania’s corrections chief for holding him in solitary confinement for 26 years, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Philadelphia ruled 2-1 that inmate Roy L. Williams can sue for alleged violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Associated Press covered the Sept. 20 decision.

The prison chief did not have qualified immunity because “individuals with a known history of serious mental illness have a clearly established right not to be subjected to prolonged, indefinite solitary confinement—without penological justification—by an official who was aware of that history,” wrote Senior Judge Theodore McKee, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, citing a prior case.

Williams was in solitary confinement between 1993 and 2019, when the state corrections department changed its policy because of a legal settlement. But the department was on notice that its policy was cruel and unusual because of a 2014 report by the U.S. Department of Justice, McKee said.

The report said harsh solitary confinement for extended periods of time for prisoners with serious mental illness and intellectual disability “constitutes precisely the type of indifference to excessive risk of harm the Eighth Amendment prohibits.”

Judge Peter J. Phipps, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, dissented.

The majority “ignores this court’s precedent and misapplies foundational principles,” Phipps wrote.

Williams, who was convicted for killing a construction worker, had mental health issues since childhood, according to the opinion. He was 14 years old when he was involuntarily committed for suicidal threats and violent behavior.

Williams was represented by the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, which has filed similar lawsuits over solitary confinement.

Williams’ case “is the first to go up on appeal,” said Matthew Feldman, a supervising lawyer with the group, in an interview with the Associated Press. “So I think this opinion definitely will help all those other men whose cases are currently pending in trial courts right now.”

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. For second year in a row, law firms pull…

Careers

For second year in a row, law firms pull back on lateral hiring of lawyers

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 27, 2024, 11:35 am CDT

Law firms continue to cut back lateral hiring of lawyers following the talent wars of 2021, according to a report by the National Association for Law Placement.

Lateral hiring by firms declined 35% in 2023 following a decrease of 11.5% the prior year, according to a March 27 press release from the NALP and a NALP Bulletin article.

The median number of lawyers hired was 4.0 in 2023, and the average was 9.3 per office or firm, the lowest numbers since 2010.

As the market cooled, there was also a decline in the number of lateral hires allowed to work remotely outside firms’ geographic areas. For lateral partners, the percentage allowed to work remotely was 12%, down from 16.1% in 2022. For associates, the remote percentage was 13.6%, down from 19.3% in 2022.

Lateral hiring is down more for associates than partners. Associate lateral hiring decreased nearly 43% in 2023, following a decline of 20% in 2022. Although associate lateral hiring declined among all sizes of firms, it was most pronounced in firms with more than 1,000 lawyers. In those firms, associate lateral hiring decreased 51%.

Partner lateral hiring only decreased 10% in 2023 after a slight increase of 5.5% in 2022. The decline was due to a 19.1% decline in hiring at firms with 501 to 700 lawyers and a 19.9% decline with firms of more than 1,000 lawyers. At firms of other sizes, lateral hiring of partners increased.

The NALP analysis is based on more than 4,400 lateral hires at 479 firms and offices. Firms were encouraged to report hiring based on individual offices, but some of the data includes firmwide hiring.

Nikia Gray, executive director of the NALP, noted NALP research showing that firms are also making fewer offers for summer associate programs.

The research on summer offers and lower lateral hiring “strongly suggests that law firms are projecting lower client demand over the next few years and readjusting their talent growth strategies as a result,” Gray said in the press release.