Margaret Winter

Margaret Winter is Associate Director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.  For the past 18 years, her work has focused almost exclusively on class action prison reform cases, in trial and appellate courts around the country.  She argued and won a prisoner’s rights case in the US Supreme Court, Young v. Harper, 520 U.S. 143 (1997), with Justice Thomas writing the opinion for a unanimous court.

In October 2008, Professor Winter won an injunction against Sheriff Joe Arpaio (the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America”), requiring him to provide constitutionally constitutional adequate conditions of confinement to the 8,000 pretrial detainees in Maricopa County Jails. Graves v. Arpaio, Civ. 77-479 (D. Ariz., Oct. 23, 2008)), aff’d, 623 F.3d 1043 (9^th Cir. 2010).

She represents the detainees in Los Angeles County Jail, the largest jail in the nation, challenging extreme deputy violence, abuse of mentally ill prisoners, and gross overcrowding. Rutherford v. Baca, Civ. 75-04111 (C.D. Cal.).

She and Stephen Hanlon represented the 1,000 men in Mississippi’s supermax prison in a class action that resulted in a ground-breaking consent decree, which obtained release from solitary confinement of 90 percent of the State’s administrative segregation population, curtailed violence against prisoners, ended abuse of the mentally ill, and ultimately resulted in shuttering of the supermax.  Presley v. Epps, 405 civ. 148 (N.D. Miss. Nov. 18, 2007).  In a class action on behalf of all of Mississippi’s death row prisoners, Professors Winter and Hanlon won an injunction mandating far-reaching reforms of grossly inhumane conditions on death row. Gates v. Cook, 385 F.3d 503 (5^th Cir. 2004).  Her work in these cases and the subsequent far-reaching reforms in Mississippi’s criminal justice prison policies were featured in the cover story of the August 2010 issue of Governing magazine, “Prison Break: How America’s Reddest State Became a Model of Correctional Reform.” 

Representing all Mississippi prisoners with HIV, Professor Winter won one of the first federal injunctions requiring that all HIV+ prisoners be provided treatment consistent with NIH/CDC guidelines, a decision ending the categorical exclusion of prisoners with HIV from prison programs, and an appellate decision establishing the right of Mississippi prisoners to be represented by class counsel of their choice and overturning a federal court order that barred the ACLU from representing Mississippi prisoners. Gates v. Cook, 234 F.3d 221 (5^th Cir. 2001). 

She challenged Texas prison officials’ failure to protect a gay prisoner from sexual slavery by prison gangs, a case resulting in the first appellate decision recognizing the equal protection rights of prisoners not to be subjected to discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation. Johnson v. Johnson, 385 F.3d 503 (5^th Cir. 2004). 

Professor Winter represents all Mississippi youth ages 13 to 22 who have been tried and incarcerated as adults, in a class action challenging a pattern of sexual abuse, violence, and solitary c