Our team, in collaboration with Casey Denson Law, won an important victory in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case is Ellis Ray Hicks v. Department of Public Safety & Corrections, and involves a Louisiana man who was held in prison at least 60 days past his court-ordered release date. In a recorded phone call, a prison official was caught on tape explaining why - because he believed “judges have no say whatsoever to us applying our time comp laws.” He also said “anyone who messes with me gets more time.”
The Court of Appeal held that the described conduct was “objectively unreasonable“ and so denied qualified immunity to the prison official.
The court also made clear that Secretary LeBlanc, the head of the Louisiana Department of Corrections, could be held liable for the “failure to process a prisoner’s release or immediately compute an inmate’s sentence after being sentenced to time served” - which is the exact subject of several of our other cases.