The Legal Aid Society filed an amicus brief in support of incarcerated people and their families challenging the extraordinarily high collect call rates paid by recipients of telephone calls from prisoners in custody of the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS). Between the 1980s and 2007, loved ones of prisoners had no choice but to pay phone rates as much as 630 percent higher than normal consumer rates to speak with their loved ones as a result of a monopoly contract between DOCCS and MCI Worldcom Communications Inc. In January 2007, after years of advocacy, Governor Eliot Spitzer announced that New York State would cease to demand a near-60% kickback on each prison telephone call, reducing telephone rates by more than half, and the state legislature passed a bill that expressly prohibits commission charges and ensures reasonable rates for New York State prisoners and their families. Walton was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Community Service Society prior to these reforms and challenged the constitutionality of DOCCS’ previous unjustly high rates and illegal backdoor tax on prison families. In 2009, New York’s highest court held that the policy did not violate the New York Constitution, with Judge Smith dissenting.