Antony Gemmell, Supervising Attorney with The Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners’ Rights Project, recently joined The Capitol Pressroom to discuss a lawsuit brought by his team to reinstate the HALT Act, a state law restricting the use of solitary confinement in New York prisons.

The lawsuit seeks a court order directing the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) to vacate the current illegal HALT suspension and restore the critical protections.

“(DOCCS) have asserted in very broad and vague terms that they currently don’t have the ability (to implement this law) and because of that, people can be locked in their cells for over 17 hours a day,” Gemmell said. “For them to do that, there has to be an extremely compelling reason.”

Although the Governor did declare a state of emergency over an illegal strike by corrections officers, that strike has since ended, and Gemmell explained that ongoing staffing issues cannot be used as justification for suspending the protections.

“This is not an abstract concern,” Gemmell continued. “This is having real-life impacts for people. One man was found hanging in his cell after having been locked in there for over a week, so this couldn’t be a more critical situation.”

Listen to the full segment below.