February 2016 – Kendall Brill & Kelly partners Bert Deixler and Randall Jackson negotiated a landmark agreement that requires the Arizona Department of Corrections to desegregate its 10 prison facilities and end its racially discriminatory practices for all of the state’s more than 35,000 inmates. The Arizona Department of Corrections had a long-term practice of assigning inmates to housing and employment based on their race and ethnicity.
The Arizona Department of Corrections entered into a stipulated agreement negotiated by Kendall Brill & Kelly attorneys on behalf of their client, Stephen Louis Rudisill, an African-American inmate housed in the Arizona state prison system. Mr. Rudisill sought Kendall Brill & Kelly’s representation because Mr. Deixler had previously won a similar landmark case, Johnson v. California, in the U.S. Supreme Court. In Johnson, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the forced racial segregation of California’s prison system.
Kendall Brill & Kelly, which represented Mr. Rudisill on a pro bono basis, will donate its attorneys’ fees award to several public interest organizations committed to access to justice for the unrepresented.
For more information, please see the press release here and coverage of the case in the American Lawyer Litigation Daily.