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California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. US Federal Bureau of Prisons

California Coalition for Women Prisoners v. US Federal Bureau of Prisons

When Public Justice’s work results in unsealed records, other attorneys have the resources they need to bring successful cases. We are dedicated to making sure that our courts are not used to hide evidence of government misconduct or corporate harm.

In June 2024, Public Justice and the ACLU filed a motion to unseal court records and preserve public access to hearings in the class action lawsuit that survivors of sexual assault at Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin (FCI Dublin) brought against the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) last year. As of September 2024, nearly every court record and document in our request has been unsealed.

FCI Dublin

FCI Dublin’s history of abuse stretches back at least thirty years. After a major civil rights lawsuit in 1998, the prison agreed to—and later abandoned—a set of reforms. By the early 2010s, a dozen employees were removed for sexually abusing the people incarcerated there.

In 2022, an Associated Press investigation revealed an entrenched culture of abuse at FCI Dublin. The reporting drew widespread attention from advocates, and lawmakers. Eight prison staff were charged, including the warden and the chaplain. These prosecutions were unprecedented: it was the highest number of correctional officers to be charged with sex crimes in any federal prison, and the first warden to be sent to prison for a sex crime. But this did not fix the problems, and the criminal prosecutions of the officers have led to ongoing retaliation.

In August 2023, eight survivors of staff sexual abuse and retaliation at FCI Dublin and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) filed a class action lawsuit against the BOP, FCI Dublin officials, and several individual officers. Alongside the complaint, the plaintiffs also filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction to address the systemic problems at the heart of abuse.

On March 15, U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stated that FCI Dublin was “a dysfunctional mess” and called for a Special Master to oversee BOP compliance with the injunction. Less than two weeks after the Special Master was appointed, the BOP filed a sealed notice to inform the Court it intended to close FCI Dublin.

In the following weeks, the Court held a series of closed hearings to address the rushed and chaotic closure. These hearings took place without prior notice, and in many instances, the docket does not reflect that they even occurred. Throughout the proceedings, the Parties requested to file documents under seal. Some of the motions are themselves under seal. The Court has granted most of these motions without explaining the specific bases for sealing, though occasionally it acknowledged the public’s right of access.

Public Justice’s Intervention

The First Amendment establishes a strong presumption that court documents and court proceedings should be public unless there are compelling reasons to hide information from the public. In this case, the government has asked the court to seal countless documents and so, the government must prove that there is a very good reason to keep the information secret. We believe that the government can no longer prove this now that the facility is closed. The public should know what happened at FCI Dublin for two reasons:

First, it is important to expose the full extent of the government’s conduct at FCI Dublin. Although recent prison leadership has been removed and individual officers have been convicted, the abuse at the facility was not caused by a “few bad apples.” The problems at FCI Dublin span decades, and their causes are systemic. Even with the best tools, we cannot fix a broken system if we don’t know where to begin.

Second, the public should understand why courts make the decisions they make. Transparency is important for all court cases. The public’s confidence in our judicial system weakens when matters are resolved in secret, or when important evidence is hidden from view.

In our June 11 motion to unseal, we asked the court to:

  1. Unseal records for which there are no compelling reasons for secrecy;
  2. Order the parties to file unredacted public versions of any briefs or notices previously containing redaction of sealed material;
  3. Issue orders articulating the factual basis for sealing when the court determines sealing is necessary and appropriate;
  4. Enter minute orders for all closed hearings that were held between April 15, 2024, and May 8, 2024;
  5. Ensure that future court proceedings are open to the public, but if a hearing is anticipated to be closed, provide timely public notice such that any person excluded from the proceeding(s) has a reasonable opportunity to object to the closure.

On June 25, the BOP filed a response to our motion to unseal records. Notably, they did not oppose our motion to intervene; they withdrew their requests to seal many of the documents, including the crucial initial notice to the court about the facility’s imminent closure; and they admitted the motions to seal should not have been filed under seal. On July 2, we filed a reply challenging the defendant’s assertions that certain documents must remain sealed, arguing that their rationale for continued confidentiality is overbroad and obsolete in light of the closure. These motions (including our motion to intervene) were heard at oral argument on August 2. On September 20, the Court issued an order that mostly rejected the government’s arguments that information relating to ongoing administrative and criminal investigations should remain sealed. More FCI Dublin documents will be unsealed by the end of September 2024.

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