Help Support FJI this Give Miami Day!

• We continue to litigate our class action lawsuit aiming to fix the dangerously hot conditions at one South Florida prison.  See here for press coverage of this case, in case you missed it.  A recent expert report documents the conditions inside the prison.
• We filed a lawsuit against Hillsborough County to stop the enforcement of an anti-panhandling ordinance that had resulted in nearly 700 citations and some arrests of poor and homeless people asking for money.
• We filed a lawsuit against the City of Miami for enforcing its aggressive panhandling ordinance, which had resulted in nearly 400 arrets in a two-year period, resulting in the repeal of the ordinance.
• We objected to a prison rule that would make it more difficult for incarcerated people to communicate with attorneys.
• We filed two lawsuits on behalf of an incarcerated man whose civil rights settlement was seized by the prison system’s imposition of a $500k lien under Florida’s cost of incarceration statute.
• We joined a broad coalition of legal groups to urge the attorney general to respect the rule of law.
• We urged, and then celebrated the passage of, the Tristin Murphy Act, a landmark Florida law that enables counties to create mental health diversion programs to stop trapping people with mental illness in the criminal justice system.
• We finalized our settlement with Lake City, resulting in the repeal of an ordinance that prohibited standing, soliciting, or leafleting at certain intersections.
• We continued to litigate our case against St. Johns County over its anti-panhandling ordinance.
• We helped incarcerated people with disabilities secure needed accommodations in prison.
• We provided informal advocacy to dozens of people who sought our help with getting access to medical care in prison, or helping family members get information about what happened to their loved ones who passed away in prison.

Thank you for always being so supportive and standing by us as we do this work. Now more than ever we need to keep pushing to make an impact as the stakes are too high.

*Photo caption: From left to right, Ray Taseff (FJI attorney), Michael Langley (FJI Executive Director), Dante Trevisani (FJI Litigation Director), and Denis and Cynthia Murphy (FJI clients).