Two men stabbed at Holman prison after ADOC moved assailant with decade-long history of violence and sexual assault out of segregation

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By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed researcher

The man the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) believes was responsible for the kidnapping, torture, rape and death of 22-year-old Daniel Williams inside Staton Correctional Facility in 2023 stabbed two other men this week at Holman Correctional Facility.

Lamont Wilson stabbed two men at Holman on Wednesday, according to multiple people who told Appleseed about the incident. One victim suffered such serious injuries and was evacuated from the prison by helicopter. ADOC has not responded to Appleseed’s questions about the attack.

“When is something going to be done with him, or is this going to be swept under the rug like my son?,” asked Mr. Williams’s father, Terry Williams, speaking to Appleseed on Friday. He’d shared a post about the Holman prison stabbing to his Facebook page on Thursday. “I can’t tell you how broken-hearted, mad and frustrated I am with all of this.”

The murder of Daniel Williams, a young father who died the day before he was scheduled to be released, made news across the country. A month later, Appleseed shared the history of ADOC’s failures leading up to his death at the Legislature’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee’s public hearing in December, 2023.

It is unclear why ADOC’s website still lists Mr. Wilson as a “medium” custody inmate, meaning he is housed in less restrictive conditions and can remain in the general prison population, despite a long history of serious assaults, sexual violence and death across state prisons. Holman, considered a level five or “maximum security” prison, includes one-person segregation cells where prisoners with disciplinary issues are secured away from the general population. Someone within ADOC decided Mr. Wilson did not need this level of security and returned him to an open dorm where weapons are readily available.

Mr. Wilson pleaded guilty in 2023 to first-degree assault in St. Clair County Circuit Court for a previous attack on an older prisoner at St. Clair Correctional Facility who was nearly killed. He originally was charged with attempted murder. The attack was also detailed in a federal lawsuit. “His assailant was able to enter his locked cell and stabbed him in his arms, chest, back, head, and neck, using two ice picks,” according to the Second Amended Complaint, filed Aug. 28, 2015. “[The victim] suffered extensive injuries to his back and neck, including chipped vertebrae, requiring treatment at UAB hospital.”

Shortly after that case was resolved, Daniel Williams was likely smothered to death, according to the state’s chief medical examiner. Evidence found on Mr. Williams’ body corroborated accounts from witnesses who said he had been kidnapped and tortured over several days inside Staton prison. Dr. Edward Reedy, chief medical examiner for the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, conducted the autopsy. His report details injuries consistent with the accounts of Mr. Williams’ final days. “There is evidence of ligature restraint on the decedent’s ankles and contusions on various locations that are also suggestive of manual restraint,” Reedy wrote in the report. He also noted “multiple abrasions and contusions in varying states of healing” and “diffuse abrasions and contusions on his upper extremities that may be defensive in nature.”

“The cause of death was probable asphyxia due to smothering,” Reedy wrote.

Daniel Terry Williams, 22, was likely smothered to death on November 7, 2022 inside Staton Correctional Facility. No one was charged in his death.

Appleseed obtained Lamont Wilson’s full ADOC Classification Summary which documents nine reports of Mr. Wilson sexually assaulting other incarcerated men between 2017 and 2022. Some of the reported assaults also involved additional violence, including stabbing. The reported assaults occurred at Donaldson, Fountain, Ventress, Bullock and Limestone correctional facilities. Mr. Wilson received no disciplinary reports for any of those reported sexual assaults, according to the classification records.

ADOC’s own Classification Summary for Mr. Wilson in 2023 also listed reports against him during the previous 18 months for selling drugs and threatening someone who owed him money with violence, placing a “hit” on another inmate, sexually assaulting an inmate at Donaldson and raping an inmate at Fountain. Yet a risk assessment conducted Oct. 13, 2023, gave Mr. Wilson a score of zero in the category “History of Institutional Violence” during the previous five years. He also received a zero under “Most Severe Disciplinary Report Received.”

On Nov. 8, 2023, while Mr. Williams was on life support for injuries suffered in Mr. Wilson’s cell, ADOC staff completed Mr. Wilson’s annual classification review. The review noted that Mr. Wilson had not received a disciplinary report since 2018 and recommended no changes to his medium-security status.
Mr. Williams died the following day.

An Elmore County grand jury reviewed the evidence against Mr. Wilson in October 2024 but declined to indict him in Mr. Williams’ death. It’s unclear what exact evidence that grand jury saw and heard, because grand jury proceedings are not publicly held, but it has been widely known for years that more cameras are needed throughout the state’s prisons. Even so, ADOC has failed to install and maintain enough cameras to adequately monitor what happens inside its facilities.

In a recent filing in the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit against Alabama and ADOC documenting unconstitutional violence, sexual assault, and excessive force in the state’s prisons for men, federal attorneys included as exhibits 20 “Sexual Abuse Incident Form” documents compiled by ADOC officers in 2022 and 2023. In each of those documents, ADOC officers indicated that additional cameras were needed. Under the question, “Should monitoring technology be deployed or augmented to supplement supervision by staff,” officers wrote responses including “More cameras,” “More cameras would be better,” “more cameras & longer time retention of video footage,” “cameras would have assisted” and “Always need more cameras.”

Despite all of the evidence that Mr. Wilson requires a higher level of custody, it’s unclear whether that would matter, because ADOC seems unable to control the movement of incarcerated people inside prisons, and rules regarding where a person is assigned to sleep, or remain while awake, are not regularly enforced, according to federal attorneys in the DOJ’s lawsuit.

A plea for help hangs inside a cell at Holman Correctional Facility during a media tour.

Then-Commissioner John Hamm minimized unauthorized prisoner movement, testifying in that ongoing federal case ‘Well, you go visit other people at their house, and I mean, you’re not there with malicious intent, then everything is fine, you go back to your house. So if an inmate in a dorm goes to another dorm and just going to say hi, that’s fine, but they are inmates.’”

For the family of Mr. Williams, and now for two other men at Holman, the consequences of what happens when prison officials fail to adequately monitor and respond to violence remain painfully real. As is the case in much of the suffering and violence that occurs in Alabama prisons, officials at ADOC, the largest law enforcement agency in the state, have released no information about these attacks.

Since 2024, Appleseed has called for independent oversight and monitoring of Alabama prisons. Finally, in 2026, the state established a pilot program in which the Office of Examiners of Public Accounts is conducting oversight operations for one prison, which has not yet been named.

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New motion in DOJ case documents 7 years of complacency and denial following state leaders’ promises to address human rights crisis in Alabama prisons

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By Eddie Burkhalter and Carla Crowder

Seven years after the United States Department of Justice first documented unconstitutional levels of violence, sexual assault, and excessive force by guards fueled by extreme mismanagement, dysfunction and corruption across Alabama’s prison system for men, a new 260-page motion from the federal government reinforces what prisoners and their families have consistently claimed since then: Alabama’s prisons remain catastrophically dangerous and ADOC leadership has failed to take basic measures to address the human rights crisis festering in the state’s largest law enforcement agency.

The DOJ’s motion for summary judgment builds upon the complaints filed in 2020 and 2021 with page after page of recent episodes of institutional violence and abuse along with the state’s ineptitude at curtailing it. “It is not uncommon for prisoners to report being held hostage, beaten, abused and extorted by other prisoners,” the DOJ writes. Although the motion is heavily redacted for safety and security reasons, Appleseed was able to pull the following details from the approximately one-third of the motion that was not redacted. 

The lack of accountability and supervision starts with ADOC’s executive leadership. The DOJ’s motion draws upon depositions from the highest ranks at the department’s central office. 

Concerning former Commissioner John Hamm: “He does not know how many overdose deaths there are in the facilities—he does not receive reports on overdose deaths, but he asked about them “periodically.” He testified he does not visit each facility at least once a year. He has heard reports of prisoners sleeping in dorms they’re not assigned to, selling their racks, and being homeless, but that’s the warden’s job to run the facility and he has not talked to them about those issues. He does not keep track of data about sexual assaults; he does not review LESD reports about sexual assault; and has not talked to wardens about sexual assaults in the facilities.”

Concerning current Commissioner Greg Lovelace, interviewed while he was serving as Chief Deputy Commissioner: “He testified that he is the number two in the organization and is supervising the entire ADOC system for the Commissioner. He spends most of his time on the new prison project, and has not seen any reports regarding the extent of violence, contraband, or sexual assaults in the system.”

The pleading documents wardens who have no clue as to what policies and procedures govern the agency along with flagrant ignorance among agency leaders about critical issues such as staffing, investigative procedures, and corrective action since the DOJ initially raised these issues in its 2019 CRIPA (Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act) report.

“Similarly, Alabama also used to hold regular meetings where they would discuss violence in the prisons, but Alabama stopped these meetings and when the meetings occurred, Alabama did not track whether any recommended violence mitigation measures discussed at the meetings were implemented by the facility wardens.

Alabama fails to respond reasonably to the extensive violence and sexual violence in the prisons. Alabama fails to conduct proper investigations, track valuable information, or use available information to mitigate the substantial risk of violence and sexual violence. These systemic deficiencies, taken as a whole, show deliberate indifference,” according to the motion.

The case is set for trial in November. U.S. District Judge Harold Mooty has informed both sides that he plans to visit the 13 prisons at issue in the litigation prior to the trial.

“Erosion of the physical plant”

For years, Gov. Kay Ivey and many legislators have relied on promised new prisons as the remedy. But Alabama prisons have been overcrowded for two decades, the DOJ points out, putting major strain on the physical plant. And yet, maintenance at these current facilities has been woefully lacking.

As the DOJ expert put it: “The erosion of the physical plant of Alabama’s facilities reflects the erosion of willingness or ability to manage the correctional system.”

“Despite acknowledging that the prisons are falling apart, Alabama has failed to respond reasonably to the substantial risk posed to prisoners continuing to be incarcerated in the facilities. For example, there is supposed to be a maintenance supervisor at each prison responsible for the day-to-day maintenance at the prison. However, not every major male prison in Alabama has at least one employee who does maintenance.” 

None of the state’s major prisons have preventive maintenance plans, there are no regular audits of working conditions and the person in charge of research and planning for ADOC “does not have information related to maintenance of facility management and she does not know who would produce that data.” 

Instead the prisons have been left to fall apart, with broken equipment routinely fashioned into weapons.

Governor Ivey’s Alabama solution to an Alabama problem

Violence is pervasive throughout the state’s system and has been for several years, the federal government states in the motion, and yet ADOC “also fails to properly classify all incidents, obscuring the official numbers reported for some violence.” The federal government’s new motion then appears to catalogue dozens of homicides occurring after the state was notified of federal action and vowed to improve conditions. 

Alabama officials stood before the press and constituents seven years ago and vowed to quickly address these issues.  “Our primary objective is to ensure each facility provides a humane, secure, and safe environment for inmates, and that reforms already in place and proposed bring about positive, tangible changes throughout the prison system,” then ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn said in a statement with Gov. Kay Ivey regarding the DOJ’s 2019 findings letter.   

“Over the coming months, my Administration will be working closely with DOJ to ensure that our mutual concerns are addressed and that we remain steadfast in our commitment to public safety, making certain that this Alabama problem has an Alabama solution,” Ivey said in the statement. 

The joint statement reads that ADOC “has been actively working to remedy these concerns by improving correctional officer hiring and retention; developing effective prison management, including efforts to curtail the entry of contraband; and replacing an outdated prison system with state-of-the-art correctional facilities designed to safely, effectively, and humanely manage and meet the needs of a diverse inmate population.”

“In response to DOJ’s findings, it is important to understand all the current efforts ADOC has taken and will continue to take to improve the conditions of confinement within the male prison system,” Mr. Dunn said. “Governor Ivey’s commitment to working closely with the Legislature to resolve this generational problem will ultimately lead to a 21st Century prison system.”

Despite assurances in 2019 that the state was working to address the DOJ’s concerns and stem the tide of contraband and deaths, those deaths only increased in the following years. The new motion documents the following: “From 2019 to 2024, as reported by Alabama, prisoners killed at least 78 other prisoners in ADOC…Prisoners are routinely stabbed with prison-made knives and knives smuggled in from outside.”

Deandre Roney died June 9, 2024, after being stabbed at Donaldson Prison.

Daniel Terry Williams, 22, was likely smothered to death on November 7, 2022 inside Staton Correctional Facility. No one was charged in his death.

Sexual violence also remains rampant inside the state’s prisons, where “prisoners engage in sexual acts for protection, for drugs, and to work off debts.” Unreported sexual violence occurs “hidden behind sheets draped from top bunks to conceal what is happening on lower bunks, all occurring in the absence of staff” and one man “testified he had been beaten, held down, and raped numerous times in ADOC.” This too was documented seven years ago.

Overcrowding and understaffing have been problems for more than two decades, which leads to violence and sexual abuse, the DOJ’s motion states. The prisons have operated above design capacities since at least 2000, and there is regularly one officer covering multiple posts, “leaving entire housing units unsupervised for excessively long periods of time. … Regional Director Edward Ellington testified that it was permissible for an ADOC facility to have no officers assigned to watch a housing unit.” 

“If inmates don’t stop it, it don’t get stopped,” one incarcerated man told the DOJ. “They just come after you’re dead or he’s dead or after they’re all done and be like, Come on, let’s go to Seg.” One prisoner testified that it took him a week to report that he was sexually assaulted “because other prisoners would not let him out of the dorm.” 

ADOC’s inability to control the movement of incarcerated people inside prisons contributes to the unconstitutional violence, and staff fail to ensure people are sleeping in their assigned beds. Bed roster counts and the wearing of wristbands that denote which housing unit a person is assigned to are not consistently enforced. Yet leadership shrugs. “Even Commissioner John Hamm minimized unauthorized prisoner movement, testifying, ‘Well, you go visit other people at their house, and I mean, you’re not there with malicious intent, then everything is fine, you go back to your house. So if an inmate in a dorm goes to another dorm and just going to say hi, that’s fine, but they are inmates.’” 

A crowded dorm in an Alabama prison

Because movement isn’t controlled, prisoners lose assigned beds to stronger prisoners or due to debts, becoming essentially homeless and “sleeping on the floor, in dayrooms, or even outside.” Controlling movement is critical to keeping sexual assault victims and predators apart. 

One warden interviewed by DOJ investigators couldn’t say how many dorms her facility had, or if her facility’s population was “less than 10,000 prisoners. (It is around 1,200 prisoners).” She didn’t know how many homicides occurred at her prison since she became warden, and knew very little about the homicides that happened in the previous month.  She was uncertain about the details of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act that governs how state prisons handle sexual assault incidents, and when asked if she could change one thing about her prison “she said the location because of her commute.” 

Ongoing excessive force, assaults and homicides by officers

From 2019 through Jan. 31, 2025, at least 12 ADOC officers and supervisors have been criminally convicted of charges related to assaulting incarcerated people, and at least five more were charged for assaulting prisoners. 

“At Elmore, two officers, a sergeant and a lieutenant, were convicted of an incident in which the sergeant repeatedly punched, kicked, and struck two handcuffed prisoners with a baton,” and at Staton, an officer and a sergeant were convicted of kicking a prisoner and striking him with a baton, then lying about the incident in a report and to a state investigator. 

The DOJ noted the beating death of Steven Davis by multiple officers at Donaldson Correctional Facility in 2019 that resulted in a $250,000 settlement to his mother.  “ADOC settled that case after Judge Proctor denied in part the defendants’ motion to dismiss, concluding that “fourteen incidents in three years is sufficient to plead ‘obvious, flagrant, [and] rampant’ abuse…” 

Despite the repeated warnings as a result of the DOJ litigation, ADOC supervisors failed to prevent and address excessive force, and use excessive force themselves, the DOJ states.  “A lieutenant at Donaldson repeatedly used excessive force, culminating in his criminal conviction in 2023” and yet, “An ADOC official admitted she had never seen a facility report in which a captain recommended corrective action.” 

Despite widespread excessive use of force incidents, ADOC fails to properly investigate or handle these incidents, including one in which a man said an officer woke him “by striking him in the head with a baton because he did not turn over fast enough.” 

“The prisoner had a sleeping disorder. He testified that a baton blow broke his arm and that the warden later arranged for him to be seen by medical. ADOC files do not mention an officer using force in this incident.”

ADOC lacks a system to track use of force, and fails to prevent “the same officers and supervisor, and others, from repeatedly using excessive force against prisoners.” The motion again documents extreme complacency by ADOC leadership and staff over years: “Commissioner Hamm never received training on use of force in a ‘correctional setting.’ He did not know whether ADOC had a centralized database to track uses of force. He did not know whether uses of force increased or decreased during his tenure. He had never talked to a warden about use of force. He could not remember the last time he reviewed an LESD investigative report related to use of force.” 

“An ADOC use-of-force investigator testified that she did not recall any manual about how to conduct investigations, and she does not make determinations or recommendations about whether uses of force were justified, nor does she receive training about how to complete audit forms about uses of force. The investigator concurred with facilities’ findings that uses of force were justified, even when the files did not include body chart documentation, photographs, or statements from officers and prisoners.” 

Leadership’s response

In the state’s own motion for summary judgment, filed late Monday by private Alabama attorney William “Bill” Lunsford, he argues that the state has made “demonstrable, consistent, and comprehensive efforts” to resolve the allegations of inadequate correctional staffing; excessive use-of-force by officers against incarcerated people, violence and sexual abuse among the incarcerated and a failing classification system.

Attorney Bill Lunsford of Butler Snow

On the DOJ’s allegations regarding excessive use-of-force, the state’s motion reads that the DOJ cannot “establish a policy or practice of excessive force or a “history of widespread abuse” that should have put supervisors on notice of repeated excessive uses of force.”

In support of that argument, the state notes that for a particular six-month period, almost half of the use of force incidents reviewed by ADOC’s own review board were deemed unjustified, but the state alleges those instances of excessive use of force were handled properly. Yet, the data the state argues shows ADOC is properly handling excessive use of force instances instead clearly shows that the violence at the hands of officers is widespread.  “For example, between August 2024 and January 2025, ADOC’s Use of Force Review Board reviewed at least 58 use-of-force incidents and found 26 uses of force unjustified or unnecessary,” the state’s motion reads. 

Despite the state’s arguments that ADOC has taken meaningful steps to resolve the DOJ’s concerns, Alabama prisons remain overpopulated, understaffed and filled with contraband. 

In April 2019 there were 27,660 people in custody of ADOC, with 5,480 of those aged 50 or older. This April there were 28,568 incarcerated by the state, and 8,171 aged 50 and older. The month that DOJ’s report was published in 2019, Alabama prisons were at 168 percent capacity. The state’s prisons were at 171 percent capacity in March 2026. 

Dothan father, Tim Mathis, speaks about his son, Chase Mathis, who entered prison in a wheelchair and never came home.

Alabama prisons hit a record high number of in-custody deaths in 2023, when 327 people died, and more people died in Alabama prisons per capita than in any state in the nation in 2024, and at a rate that was nearly double those of the next highest state. In 2023 Alabama prisons had an overdose mortality rate 20 times the national average across all state prisons in 2019, the last year for which the federal government has made that data available.

Not for lack of funding

ADOC’s funding has exploded during the course of the litigation as the agency has increased pay for officers, signed expensive contracts for medical care and legal services, and spent double the budgeted amount for a new mega prison. The general fund allocation to the agency has gone from $486 million in 2019 to the current $883 million, swallowing 25% of the entire General Fund.

The Alabama Corrections Institution Finance Authority this month agreed to borrow almost $200 million to build a new 4,000-bed prison in Escambia County, which increased the budget for that prison project from $700 million to $900 million. The state’s other new 4,000-bed prison project in Elmore County has already cost more than $1.25 billion. 

The rising costs of these two new prisons is already at least $900 million more than the state Legislature in 2021 approved, when the expected cost then was set at $1.3 billion for both prisons. 

The cost to taxpayers to defend the state’s unconstitutional prisons in courts continues to balloon as well. Mr. Lunsford has already been paid at least $56.4 million defending ADOC, and with an additional $38 million he’s set to receive to defend the state’s prisons from the DOJ’s lawsuit, he’ll have been paid $94.4 million. 

With this motion, the DOJ argues that the 260 pages of facts laid out are beyond dispute; that the state violates the Eighth Amendment rights of incarcerated men and that the plaintiffs are entitled to judgment in their favor.

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Total tax dollars for William Lunsford and the Butler Snow firm now at $94 million

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The Alabama Department of Corrections’ dysfunction continues to outdo itself– over 1,600 people have died in its custody since the Department of Justice released its damning report on conditions in 2019, violence and corruption remain rampant all the way up to prison facility administrators, and taxpayers are on the hook for billions of dollars to pay for the fallout.

In the face of such dysfunction, private Alabama attorney William “Bill” Lunsford is set to receive over $38 million more to defend the state’s indefensible prisons.  As Appleseed has continued to research payments to Lunsford, we keep finding new piles of money dating back to 2016. The current total is $56.4 million paid so far, and another $38 million in pending contracts requested by the Alabama Attorney General’s Office for a new grand total of $94.4 million! 

Lunsford and his firm have been hired to defend the Alabama Department of Corrections in multiple class action lawsuits, as well as smaller civil rights claims brought by incarcerated people who have been beaten or abused, or by the families of incarcerated people who have been killed in state custody. The ongoing violence, corruption, and mismanagement suggests a litigation strategy focused on paying expensive, private lawyers to drag these cases out rather than settling them and addressing the human rights crisis across the state prison system.

Attorney Bill Lunsford of Butler Snow

Lunsford is paid far more than any other government employee in the State of Alabama, including the Governor. $94.4 million could fund the salaries of every District Attorney in the State of Alabama for at least nine years. $94.4 could fund the entire Alabama Attorney General’s Office, which employs about 80, for six years.

But there’s still time. The contracts providing this money have been put on hold for 45 days following last week’s Joint Contract Review meeting, giving lawmakers the time to ask important questions and the Governor time to remove her approval.

Tell Gov. Ivey you do not want more of your taxpayer dollars going to a single, private law firm to continue defending the Department of Corrections– ask her not to approve any new contracts to Bill Lunsford.

Contact Gov. Ivey by emailing her office using this link, or call 334.242.7100.

If you wish to also email your state representative and senator about this issue, you can find them here. Find contact information for your representative here, and your senator here. If you need assistance with your outreach, please contact Appleseed Policy and Advocacy Director Elaine Burdeshaw by emailing elaine.burdeshaw@alabamaappleseed.org.

For more information, read Appleseed Researcher Eddie Burkhalter’s story documenting Lunsford’s rising pay and showing how other states have responded in the face of DOJ litigation here.

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Other states settle cases, Alabama writes big checks. New contracts will bring total ADOC legal spending for attorney William Lunsford to $86 million

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By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

The private Alabama attorney William “Bill” Lunsford, individually and in his role as an appointed state Deputy Attorney General, has been paid $48.8 million defending the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) as of Aug. 5, and millions more of our tax dollars are headed his way.

Huntsville Attorney William Lunsford

That staggering number, taxpayer funds paid to defend the state’s deadly, chaotic prisons, will skyrocket to $86.8 million if the latest contract increase request of $38 million by ADOC goes through as expected. Most of the new money is for an anticipated trial in the slow-moving DOJ case. Appleseed confirmed these totals through state records.

It’s hard to imagine Alabama could prevail in a trial where the U.S. Department of Justice is expected to lay out a case that federal attorneys have been building since 2019, when the DOJ first issued an initial report detailing the widespread, horrifying abuses inside Alabama’s prisons for men. The DOJ filed suit in December 2020. Since then, the state has completely failed to curtail the violence, death, and corruption at the heart of the lawsuit, instead overseeing years of record deaths totaling more than 1,300 since the case began. Many of those facts are also on full display in the documentary The Alabama Solution, which uses cell phone footage from inside Alabama prisons to show rampant violence, deadly force by officers, open-air drug use and a system in chaos. The trial is set for November.

On Ash Wednesday, Alabamians gathered on the Capitol Steps to remember those who died in state prison custody. Photo by Bernard Troncale

Across the country, few states have let lawsuits over conditions much less troubling go all the way to trial. Instead, state officials agree to bring those prison systems into line, working with federal officials and the courts on settlement agreements that are enforced by monitors. Alabama is an outlier when it comes to dragging these cases on, and one has to question what the state gains in doing so.

It’s hard to question, however, whether Lunsford stands to gain by pushing towards a trial, instead of a settlement, because the many tens of millions in tax dollars going to him seem to speak louder than the voices of those who argue the money could be better spent actually trying to solve the myriad systemic issues inside Alabama’s deadly prisons. 

Comparing the legal costs with other state spending on lawyers in Alabama makes the Lunsford contracts even more alarming. His current and anticipated payments could fund the salaries of every District Attorney in the State of Alabama for at least nine years, according to recent state General Fund budget documents. The Lunsford contract amounts could also fund the entire Alabama Attorney General’s Office, which employs about 80, for six years.  

In a state that purportedly prides itself on fiscal conservatism, only one Alabama lawmaker has questioned the legal spending. Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, has temporarily held up the two new contracts for Lunsford to defend the ADOC against the federal government’s lawsuit.

Rep. England, a member of the state Legislature’s Contract Review Committee and the Joint Prison Oversight Committee, put a 45-day hold – all he’s legally allowed to do – on a $30 million contract to Lunsford to pay for litigating the DOJ’s lawsuit over prisons for men, and another $3 million to Lunsford for his legal work on the longrunning Braggs v. Dunn lawsuit over mental health treatment inside state prisons. 

ADOC’s request Thursday would push the total spent to defend the department in Braggs v. Dunn to $14.2 million. Legal spending in Braggs has not been a good investment. In June, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson’s findings of deliberate indifference at the institutional level, concluding that ADOC’s mental healthcare was “horrendously inadequate.” The Eleventh Circuit ruled that the prison system violated the constitutional rights of thousands of incarcerated people with severe mental health conditions by showing deliberate indifference to their mental healthcare needs.

In a candid conversation with Appleseed the former director of another state’s department of corrections explained that it makes no sense for a state to place the majority of its prison litigation with one private attorney, whose business is centered on prison litigation, because it incentivises that attorney to drag the case out and continue billing those legal hours instead of finding ways to help solve the crisis and save the state money. 

A question worth asking is, if most DOJ lawsuits over prisons ended in either consent decrees or settlement agreements, what has Alabama gained by dragging out this legal fight? 

Other states settle and address the problems, Alabama write checks to private lawyers

The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) of 1980 is a federal law meant to protect people incarcerated in state and local prisons and jails, those in nursing homes, mental health facilities and other group settings. The DOJ’s 2020 CRIPA lawsuit against Alabama is one of many the federal government has filed since the law’s inception, but one of very few that appears to be headed all the way to trial. 

In these matters, the DOJ generally issues a findings letter to states documenting civil rights abuses in prisons and jails, as it did to Alabama in 2019, and if the federal government isn’t able to secure an agreed upon resolution, the DOJ can file a lawsuit, as it did over Alabama’s prisons for men. 

In most of those other states where a lawsuit is filed, the cases are adjudicated through settlement agreements or consent decrees prior to going to trial, where the outcomes are uncertain, the costs to states in legal fees can be exorbitant, and the abuses persist as the cases drag out. 

Among the many examples of cases settling without trials:

In 1996 the DOJ filed four CRIPA complaints –  with Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Florida  – and all four were later settled. 

In 1997 there were six new CRIPA complaints filed, and four of those six ended in settlements. 

All four of the DOJ’s CRIPA complaints filed in 1998 were settled, and the following year, in 1999, the DOJ filed seven new CRIPA complaints and all seven later ended in settlements before going to trial. 

The DOJ’s investigation in 1998 found that staff at five county jails in Phoenix, Arizona “used excessive physical force and restraints in violation of the constitutional rights of individuals detained in the jails.” Arizona and the DOJ entered into a settlement agreement that required the jails to increase staffing and better train staff in the use of force.

Similarly, all three CRIPA lawsuits filed by the DOJ in 2000 settled prior to trials, and another two new CRIPA lawsuits filed in 2001 also settled. 

More recently, Massachusetts Department of Corrections settled with the DOJ in 2022 over mental health care and suicide prevention. The DOJ’s investigation found  “unconstitutional conditions and circumstances where incarcerated people in mental health crisis harmed themselves up to and including suicide…The department found that MDOC did not adequately supervise individuals in mental health crisis, did not provide them adequate mental health care, and used prolonged mental health watches under restrictive housing conditions.”

Settlements have continued in recent years. In 2023 the DOJ entered into a consent decree with the Minnesota Department of Corrections over what the federal government said was disability discrimination throughout the prison system. Virginia in 2019 settled a DOJ lawsuit over religious practices inside Virginia Department of Corrections prisons. The New Jersey Department of Corrections in 2022 signed onto a consent decree with the DOJ over allegations of sexual abuse, excessive force and retaliation at a prison for women. 

Mississippi lawmaker: “We don’t want to be in a situation like Alabama.” 

The DOJ in 2020 opened an investigation into four prisons operated by the Mississippi Department of Corrections, including Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman), Southern Mississippi Correctional Institute, Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, and the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, and four years later released a 60-page report that mirrors many of the findings in Alabama’s case, and states that “MDOC routinely violates the constitutional rights of people incarcerated at all three facilities by failing to protect them from widespread physical violence.” 

Parchman Prison in Mississippi. Unlike Alabama, Mississippi has avoided a DOJ lawsuit over prison conditions.

“The state does not adequately supervise the incarcerated population, control the flow of contraband, adequately investigate incidents of serious harm, or provide adequate living conditions. These problems are exacerbated by chronic understaffing that has allowed gangs to exert improper influence inside the prisons,” the DOJ’s report on Mississippi’s prisons reads. 

It’s been six years since the DOJ opened the investigation into Mississippi’s prisons, and two years since the release of the report, and the DOJ hasn’t filed a lawsuit, as it did just two years after filing its first report on Alabama prisons. 

Instead, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves hired Burl Cain, former head of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, to lead the state’s prison system and enact reforms. 

Cain, a controversial prison leader who opponents say overused solitary confinement and who faced allegations of a land deal with the family of an incarcerated man and an audit that showed he used prison workers at his private property, oversaw marked reforms at Angola prison, which in the 1970s was known for rampant violence. 

In an effort to help prevent a DOJ lawsuit, air-conditioning was installed in all but one unit inside 124-year-old Parchman prison, and a third of South Mississippi Correctional Institution now as AC, according to the Clarion Ledger. That one unit in Parchman, that had been the site of a gang war that drew national attention, was shut down and those incarcerated persons sent to another facility. 

“That’s hard work. That helps us with the Justice Department,” Cain told the Clarion Ledger. 

Mississippi state Sen. Juan Barnett, chairman of the Senate Corrections Committee, has warned his state lawmakers that if they fail to make the needed fixes, Mississippi could be facing a DOJ lawsuit as well. A bill he filed that would have closed Parchman and likely sent a portion of those incarcerated persons to a prison operated by a private prison company failed in a senate committee in 2025.  “We don’t want to be in a situation like Alabama,” Barnett told the Clarion Ledger. 

But Attorney Bill Lunsford is collecting tax dollars in Mississippi, as well. This time as the monitor for a private medical care contract. Last summer, that state approved a one-year $687,000 contract with Lunsford to lead a team from his firm, Butler Snow, to monitor the medical contractor providing care for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, according to Mississippi Today, which published a series of articles detailing medical neglect inside Mississippi’s prisons. 

“A complicated, sticky wicket.”

Remarkably, despite making millions defending Alabama’s prison system and asking for many millions more, an attorney working in Lunsford’s Butler Snow office filed a motion in the DOJ’s case on August 5 that failed to properly redact sensitive information about a new security measure within ADOC. Appleseed was able to read the data despite the redactions. 

Rep. Chris England has consistently scrutinized ADOC contracts.

Appleseed isn’t sharing that data, as it involves a large-scale security measure, but the misstep is at least the second embarrassing instance involving Lunsford and his team’s work on Alabama prison litigation. A federal judge in July 2025 removed Lunsford and two other attorneys from a civil rights lawsuit when the attorney for the plaintiff notified the court that a filing by Lunsford’s team included incorrect information made up by artificial intelligence. State records show Lunsford’s team took in $172,396 in the case in which AI was used.

After Rep. England spent more than 20 minutes questioning ADOC’s representative about the requested additional millions to Lunsford during last week’s Joint Contract Review Committee meeting, state Sen. Dan Roberts, R-Mountain Brook, the committee chair, noted that the state was working toward construction of a new 4,000-bed prison and is “anticipating building another facility” but that construction is “a little behind schedule.” The enormous new prison, which has swallowed $1.3 billion in state funding, should insulate the state against future litigation costs, Roberts suggested, before adding: “It is a complicated, sticky wicket.” 

 

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Fallout from the State’s Unfortunate Contract with Prison Healthcare Provider YesCare Continues as Workers Go Unpaid and State Dollars Go Missing

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By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

Medical workers inside Alabama prisons who were employed by the embattled company YesCare haven’t received their last paychecks, and the Alabama Department of Corrections is predicting “protracted litigation,” over millions of taxpayer dollars at issue following the sudden termination of the billion-dollar contract. 

The hardship falling upon those prison health care workers comes despite the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) having paid YesCare a final payment of $11 million in April with a “verbal agreement” that the money would be used to pay employee payrolls. That didn’t happen, leaving workers having to make difficult financial decisions for themselves and their families. 

At Bullock Correctional Facility, nurses on all three shifts went on strike Tuesday, and although some returned to work Wednesday, one worker who did not return to the prison told Appleseed she’d remain at home until she received her pay. Most of those former YesCare workers are now employed by NaphCare, the Birmingham-based company that finalized an emergency contract with ADOC on April 30 to provide medical and mental health care in the state’s prisons. 

Healthcare workers have been on strike at Bullock County prison because of unpaid labor.

The nurse told Appleseed on Wednesday that she hasn’t received a paycheck in almost a month. 

“It’s taking everything you have in this economy to ‘stay above water’ and you miss a paycheck most of us are going to drown. As a result I have had to defer bills and incur unnecessary debt,” she said. “Gasoline is almost $5 a gallon and I have a 45 minute drive to work, and they expect us to still report to work and remain loyal to the cause.” 

The state of Alabama should pay the workers, she said, and “should be held responsible for appointing these unreliable contractors who misuse the funds and are allowed to file bankruptcy and operate under a different name.” 

In a statement from ADOC’s general counsel, Mary-Coleman Roberts, obtained by Appleseed, the department says YesCare failed to honor an agreement to pay the workers their last paychecks, and warns of possible litigation. The statement also includes a response from YesCare’s chief restructuring officer David Goldwasser. 

“As a reminder, ADOC’s last payment to YesCare was made the week of April 20th with the express verbal agreement that YesCare would use that money to make the last two payrolls on April 24th and May 8th. Obviously, that did not happen. When I asked what the ADOC’s $11 million payment was used for, Mr. Goldwasser would only say that it was used for  ‘emergency operations.’  This answer certainly does not sit well with the ADOC, and we will continue exploring all remedies available to us to assist with this payroll issue and the issue of outstanding debts to community providers. That said, we now believe this will likely result in protracted litigation and, unfortunately, there are no guarantees in litigation,” Roberts’ statement reads in part. 

The logo for the bankrupt corporation whose employees have not been paid in weeks.

NaphCare said in a statement to Appleseed that the company is taking steps to help the impacted employees. The company filed a motion on Wednesday with a Florida bankruptcy court supporting YesCare’s request to pay its former employees using money set aside as collateral in YesCare’s bankruptcy proceedings. 

“NaphCare will continue advocating to ensure our employees receive every dollar of compensation owed to them by YesCare. ADOC paid YesCare’s final invoice based on YesCare’s commitment to fulfill payroll obligations as part of the transition process. YesCare must honor that commitment, and we hope that the bankruptcy court will promptly approve YesCare’s motion to help ensure payment is made without further delay to the hundreds of healthcare workers across multiple states who are still awaiting compensation,” NaphCare’s statement reads. 

NaphCare also implemented a $1,000 signing bonus, recognized employee paid leave balances from their time at YesCare and allows employees to access up to 70 percent of their pay prior to scheduled payroll dates. 

Naphcare CEO Brad McLane added: “I believe our contract is on solid legal ground as a needed emergency contract.”

“ADOC should be commended for acting quickly, not criticized. If not for the swift action of the agency this would have been a humanitarian crisis beyond reckoning,” McLane said. 

“There’s got to be a better process”

The financial meltdown has been years in the making. One key lawmaker warned that the $1.03 billion Alabama contract seemed shaky, but the state forged ahead.

New York City-based private equity firm Perigrove 1018, LLC, led by Isaac Lefkowitz, in December 2021 bought Corizon Health Inc., once the largest prison health care company in the U.S., which was facing more than $775 million in wrongful death and medical malpractice lawsuits. 

Within months of acquiring Corizon, Lefkowitz and his ownership team used a controversial legal maneuver that’s been called the “Texas two-step” to saddle about $185 million of the company’s debt with a newly formed company, Tehum Care Services Inc., Bloomberg Law reported, and yet another newly formed company by Corizon, called YesCare, received the $1 billion contract to provide the Alabama Department of Corrections with medical service inside the state’s prisons. Tehum filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 2023. 

According to Tehum’s bankruptcy settlement approximately $50 million was to be paid by YesCare and its subsidiaries, Bloomberg reported, but the company led by Lefkowitz, whom in bankruptcy court documents is listed as the directors of both Tehum and YesCare, in September 2025 began missing those payments. A total of five missed payments resulted in $5.7 million unpaid by YesCare, court records show. The victim creditor trusts, which were to be paid the money, declared default. 

“But on May 8, the businesses built from Corizon’s rescued assets—YesCare Corp. and several affiliates—fell into Chapter 11, capping off years of litigation and financial struggles. The bankruptcy raises questions about the effectiveness of the legal strategy known as the Texas Two-Step, and whether incarcerated creditors may ever get paid,” Bloomberg Law reported. 

Lefkowitz has in remarks disparaged incarcerated people whom his companies are contracted to care for, according to court records reported by Business Insider. 

“These tort claimants are criminals, right; they’re in jail?” Lefkowitz said during a deposition, Business Insider reported. “These are criminals that file fictitious claims.”

Rep. Chris England in meetings prior to ADOC entering into the $1 billion contract with YesCare warned that the company, which previously had a contract with ADOC when it was called Corizon, was on shaky grounds and would likely fail to meet the terms of the new contract. England explained to Appleseed on Wednesday that his predictions were correct and his warnings should have been heeded.  

“There’s got to be a better process where there’s more oversight, so we don’t enter into contracts with companies like YesCare again,” England said. “The Department of Corrections should not be able to enter into, negotiate contracts without some additional involvement or third party oversight to keep us from situations like this.”

Rep. Chris England has consistently scrutinized ADOC contracts and first raised concerns about YesCare’s viability in 2023.

England also expressed concern for the unpaid workers.

“They sacrificed as much as they have to care for people who are incarcerated. It should be commended and not forgotten. The state of Alabama should do whatever is necessary to make sure that they get those last two paychecks. No words to say how much we appreciate that sacrifice,” England said. “But at the same time, the state of Alabama, the Department of Corrections owes you better to not enter into deals with companies that are already insolvent, working through lawsuits all over the country, and only for us to pretend like this wasn’t foreseeable.”

On May 15, as the workers were dealing with another pay period with no pay, Goldwasser, YesCare’s Chief Restructuring Officer, sent a memo to employees across multiple states.

“To the providers, nurses, medical staff, and operations teams who have continued to show up for patients this week — I see you. The customers we serve see you. Our clinical work has not stopped, and that is because of you, doing your job under conditions no one should have to work under. You are the reason this company is worth saving, and it is the reason I am here doing this. I’m sorry you are going through this. I won’t insult you by saying anything more than that.”

His words were not persuasive to the nurse at Bullock Correctional.

“I have never experienced anything like this my entire 26 years of nursing. Working hard. Showing up. Doing what you are supposed to do, then having to beg for pay you have already earned, borrow money, and trying to explain to your family why bills can’t get paid?,” she said. “It strips away dignity and this entire situation is humiliating.” 

 

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Alabama Prison Healthcare Faces Spiraling Costs and Grim Uncertainty. A Smarter Way Forward is Within Our Grasp.

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By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

James Jones was hurting long before YesCare, the company contracted to provide medical care for those in Alabama prisons, diagnosed him with prostate cancer. 

After Appleseed succeeded in getting Mr. Jones, now 78, released from prison in December 2024 and his treatments began outside of prison fences, his life and health took a turn for the better. He recently moved into his very own apartment, in a HUD-subsidized senior housing complex, and now Medicare covers his healthcare expenses.

James Jones and Appleseed’s reentry team

But there are hundreds of people like him, older and sick and of no danger to the public, who remain imprisoned and unable to access quality healthcare. And their numbers increase every year. Their continued incarceration, at a time when privately-contracted prison healthcare is a struggling industry, creates a costly and uncertain situation, especially for poor states like Alabama.

What our team has found, over more than five years of working with formerly incarcerated older people, is that there are available resources in Alabama communities, especially Jefferson County, to care for many these individuals – people who pose no risk to the public, yet who are costing the state millions while receiving substandard care in prison. At Appleseed, we are creating a cost-effective and compassionate model for relieving some of the pressure on the overwhelmed prison system and its expensive medical provider. 

Appleseed Researcher Eddie Burkhalter and James Jones visit during a picnic at Railroad Park.

Given the fragile state of correctional health care and the continued danger and crowding in Alabama prisons, we believe it’s past time to scale this model. Below we offer lessons from our work and solutions to a brewing crisis that impacts more than 21,000 people in Alabama prisons.

Bankruptcy, missed payments, and missed pay checks

From the beginning of YesCare’s relationship with the State of Alabama, there were concerns about costs and viability. YesCare’s more than $1 billion contract with the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) was approved in 2023. The company was born from the demise of Texas-based Corizon Health Inc., which had provided the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) with health care services from 2012 to 2017. Numerous Alabama advocacy groups and incarcerated people sued Corizon over allegations of medical neglect, and facing a slew of lawsuits nationwide alleging the company failed to pay hospitals and insurance providers, Corizon transferred massive amounts of debt to a newly formed Tehum Care Services, which then declared bankruptcy. Critics said the move left Corizon’s creditors with no recourse. Corizon executives then created YesCare and landed the massive ADOC  contract. 

“Tehum, the bankrupt new company created in the maneuver, owes more than $82 million to over 1,000 creditors, including former patients who were injured or neglected, former employees who were hurt on the job, hospitals, doctors’ offices, cities and states,” The Marshall Project reported in 2023. “Almost all of Corizon’s assets — worth more than $170 million, according to court papers — went to YesCare, which continues to provide healthcare at prisons and jails.”

Then last month, YesCare missed a $2 million settlement payment required under the bankruptcy settlement. As reported March 5 in the Wall Street Journal, “Prison healthcare contractor YesCare didn’t make required payments under a $75 million settlement to resolve the bankruptcy of its former affiliate Tehum Care Services, opening the door again to medical-injury and creditor lawsuits.” Appleseed’s questions to ADOC regarding the YesCare contract and issues with the company’s solvency went unanswered.

YesCare failed to pay its Alabama prison workers on the scheduled payday Friday, April 10, according to statements from several  of those workers to Appleseed on Monday, April 13. Appleseed also heard from advocates who monitor Alabama’s prisons that YesCare staff went unpaid Friday and many healthcare workers for the company walked off the job at Kilby Correctional Facility on Monday morning.  

“If you are receiving this email, it is because we are aware that some payroll transactions have still not been fully processed as of this afternoon,” reads an email from YesCare Chief Human Resources Officer Dennis Wade to staff on Friday, which a health care worker for the company sent to Appleseed. “We are working with our ownership and our bank to address the situation and hope to have it resolved on Monday. We know this is a hardship and apologize for the inconvenience.” 

We learned Tuesday, April 14, that YesCare staff were finally paid, though several days late. 

Workers have communicated their frustration in multiple ways. “We most definitely didn’t receive pay on Friday and it’s almost the close of business and I do not see any pending transactions,” one YesCare worker told Appleseed. “YesCare has failed to pay in a timely manner for the last 2 pay periods…but it has never been this late.” 

Against this backdrop, the expensive medical needs of incarcerated Alabamians are only increasing with the state keeping so many older people locked up long after they age out of criminality.  

The Senseless Costs of an Aging Prison Population 

The percentage of incarcerated people who are older has continued to increase in Alabama prisons for decades. As of January 2026 the percentage of people under ADOC’s jurisdiction (This includes those imprisoned and those serving sentences in community corrections settings. ADOC public reporting doesn’t break down the numbers to show just those who are serving in prison.) who were 51 years old or older sat at 28.5 percent, or 8,086 people. That’s higher than the national average of 24 percent aged 51 or older, according to research published in the National Library of Medicine. In 2000, those older people made up just 7 percent of Alabama’s prison population. 

As Alabama prisons continue to house a higher percentage of older people, the rising cost of providing physical and mental health places a greater and greater burden on the state’s General Fund. Studies show that the cost of caring for those older incarcerated people is between three and five times the cost of keeping younger people incarcerated. 

In 2000, Alabama spent an average of $24.47 to incarcerate someone for a day, or about $9,300 per year. That number stayed relatively the same between 1995 and 2003, but the dramatic rise of

older individuals in prison sent costs soaring. According to ADOC Commissioner John Hamm, speaking in a 2024 budget hearing, he predicted the daily cost for fiscal year 2024 to hit $87 a day, a 255 percent increase from 2000. (ADOC’s annual reports used to include data on the cost of incarcerating people, but the department stopped publishing that data for the 2022 annual report.) But we know it continues to escalate as the FY27 General Fund budget allocation for ADOC was $868 million.

An aging prison population requires longer, more attentive care. As such, ADOC’s healthcare system will continue to be strained, requiring excessive reliance on off-site infirmary admissions. Along with the aging population, which brings its own increased medical costs, there are others who have serious health conditions or terminal illnesses. Medical costs to address the health care needs for people incarcerated continue to increase, going from $120 million in 2012 to $235 million in 2023.

A group of Appleseed’s clients, all of whom served decades in life sentences without parole in Alabama prisons, enjoy a day in a Birmingham, Ala., park following a birthday celebration for John Coleman. From left are Larry Garrett, Ronald McKeithen, Robert Cheeks, Lee Davis, John Coleman, and Willie Ingram. Photo by Bernard Troncale

It becomes even harder to justify spending hundreds of millions to care for aging men and women in prisons when one recognizes the long-settled fact that as people age they commit less crime. Hundreds of incarcerated Alabamians eke out an existence behind bars barely able to walk, much less to commit crimes.  

Those aged 60 and older account for only three to four percent of violent crime nationally, and older people return to prison at lower rates as well. 

“Older offenders were substantially less likely than younger offenders to recidivate following release. Over an eight-year follow-up period, 13.4 percent of offenders age 65 or older at the time of release were rearrested compared to 67.6 percent of offenders younger than age 21 at the time of release,” according to a U.S. Sentencing Commission report. “The pattern was consistent across age groupings, and recidivism measured by rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration declined as age increased.”

In short, people over 60 were about five times less likely to be rearrested than people under 21. 

Our roadmap for care after long-term incarceration and delayed diagnoses

James Jones was 77 when Appleseed won his freedom from a life without parole sentence, and on December 18, 2024, he walked out of the St. Clair Correctional Facility. Even prison staff celebrated his release as the jovial gentleman known as “Honkytonk” ambled out of the long-troubled prison. Appleseed’s reentry team was already well underway on the plan to help him get the medical care he badly needed. 

One of the first people in the state to be sentenced to a mandatory sentence of life without parole under the Habitual Felony Offender Act in 1981, Mr. Jones spent 43 years in prison following a robbery at a North Birmingham shoe store.

Mr. Jones was diagnosed with prostate cancer shortly before his release from prison, but because he wasn’t receiving care earlier on for the pain he was experiencing, his diagnosis was likely late in coming, explained Kathleen Henderson, Appleseed’s re-entry case manager. “If they had given him symptom care they could have picked up on it,” Ms. Henderson said, noting that since his release and because of his cancer treatments, he’s improving. “Now Mr. Jones is living comfortably. He’s doing pretty well.” 

Our client John Coleman, who Appleseed freed from prison in 2023 after he served 34 years of a life sentence, was wheelchair-bound while in prison, but after his release, once Appleseed helped him access physical therapy and medical treatments for the pain in his back and legs, he began walking with a walker. 

Clients John Coleman and Robert Cheeks, both who spent most of their adult lives incarcerated.

“He was able to get along fine (with the proper treatment) but while he was in, he had none of that, ” Ms. Henderson said, noting that even among the Appleseed clients who were being treated for medical conditions while incarcerated, the medication they were provided was “one size fits all” and not tailored to their individual needs. There is no rehabilitation care in Alabama prisons either, she said. 

Another freed Appleseed client had HIV while incarcerated but records don’t show he was ever treated while in prison. He’s receiving that treatment now, and it was only recently discovered that he also has stomach cancer. “How long had that been going on, for it to get to this point?” Ms. Henderson said of the cancer diagnosis. “Their problems are not met in prison like they should be,” Ms. Henderson said. 

John Coleman was sentenced to die in prison and is released after serving 34 years. He recently celebrated his 92nd birthday.

Ingrid Patrick, Appleseed’s social worker who, along with Ms. Henderson, ensures Appleseed’s re-entry clients thrive outside of prison, said she begins the process with new clients by securing housing, either at a transition home like Birmingham’s Shepherd’s Fold or with the client’s family, and then begins the work of getting them medical care and all the documents they need to restart their lives.

Our team has learned that this process can take months, and many clients need extra resources to survive as they wait out the federal bureaucratic delays. “You would be surprised at how many of our guys didn’t have a social security card or birth certificate,” Mrs. Patrick said. But once the necessary documents are secured and federal services start flowing, people can thrive. 

Appleseed’s team stresses the importance of blood work and diabetes testing once people are released, because too often clients had no idea they were diabetic while incarcerated. “We had one instance where he knew he was diabetic, but the line (in prison) for getting his medication was just so long, and he has extreme back pain so he can’t stand in that long line, and so he just stopped getting his medication,” Ms. Patrick said. “We got him released and in to see his doctor, and he is doing so much better.” 

“A lot of times they aren’t getting the proper care, or the full care, they should be receiving,” Ms. Patrick said. “A lot of the healthcare they get out here has prolonged their lifespan for sure.” 

Currently, 16 Appleseed reentry clients are over age 65. Thirteen of these individuals have chronic health problems, such as prostate cancer, kidney disease, high blood pressure or pain related to aging and require assistance from our team for doctors appointments, prescription access and more. 

Appleseed’s capable reentry team – a total of three people – have connected dozens of clients to community resources. The key is a case manager, social worker, and peer mentor, Ronald McKeithen, who served 37 years himself, and is now 64 years old, so he understands what these individuals need on many levels. What our clients need most is help with things like getting new identification cards and navigating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits: tasks that anyone trained in case management can easily help with. “There are people coming out who have health problems who are older, who could live on their own. It absolutely can be done. There are so so so many folks out there that work with health care,” Ms. Henderson said. “There are so many health resources out here.” 

On a recent visit to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens for the garden’s cherry blossom festival, three of Appleseed’s clients and Ms. Patrick spent time together. Robert Cheeks, now 83, was pushed in his wheelchair and talked about his memories, but the memories he shared weren’t of life in the free world. He’d served 37 years of a life without the possibility of parole sentence before Appleseed freed him in 2022. 

Robert Cheeks shortly after his release from prison in 2022. He remains a vibrant member of our community. Photo by Bernard Troncale

“He’d been in prison for 30-plus years. Those are the memories he has,” Ms. Patrick  said. “So why should he not be allowed to come out and make new memories for himself?”

There are laws to help fix this, but obstacles remain

States around the country are grappling with this issue. Various tools and laws are available, often known as compassionate release. Alabama has both a medical furlough and a medical parole law in its state statutes. 

The medical furlough statute provides eligibility to incarcerated individuals age 55 or older “who suffer[s] from a chronic life-threatening infirmity, life-threatening illness, or chronic debilitating disease related to aging, who poses a low risk to the community, and who does not constitute a danger to himself or herself or society.” People who are permanently incapacitated or terminally ill are also eligible. Terminally ill is described as having “an incurable condition caused by illness or disease which would, with reasonable medical judgment, produce death within 12 months.”

Alabama prison death data strongly suggest that the furlough statute is being underutilized. Currently, 16 people are in the medical furlough program, which is a little higher than the typical 13 to 15, posted in ADOC statistical reports over the last three years. But Alabama has one of the highest prison mortality rates in the United States, thus the vast majority of people with terminal illnesses or chronic life-threatening infirmities are dying in prison, rather than be released by furlough. A more robust furlough program or additional compassionate release mechanisms would allow more people to die with dignity, surrounded by family rather than in a cold prison infirmary. Plus, it would relieve some of the pressure on prison healthcare providers and reduce costs for the state.

Of the record high 327 deaths inside Alabama prisons in 2023,  ADOC classified the cause of death as natural for 153 people, which accounts for 46.7 percent of them. Appleseed is working to learn more about in custody deaths from 2014-2024, and 2023 is the first year for which we have a complete picture of causes and manner of deaths. 

Already our findings strongly suggest that people are dying of treatable conditions, calling into question the quality of prison health care. One in six “natural” deaths in Alabama prisons in 2023 occurred among incarcerated people aged 50 or younger. In more than one-fifth of those deaths (22 percent), sepsis, a life-threatening but often treatable condition, was listed as a cause or contributing factor. By comparison, sepsis was involved in only about one in 25 natural deaths across all ages that year. 

The average age for natural deaths inside Alabama prisons that year was 59, and in facilities like Ventress and Bibb, the average age of natural death drops into the 40s, ADOC’s own reporting to the federal government collected and reviewed by Appleseed shows. 

Among those younger natural deaths at Ventress prison was Ryan S. Allen, who died at the prison on April 3, 2023 at the age of 27 and whose cause of death listed in ADOC’s data submitted to the federal government states “Cause of death: staphylococcus aureus sepsis.”  Staph infections are treatable, and sepsis can mean delayed or failed intervention. 

James Lynn Johnson, 36, died at Elmore Correctional Facility on July 11, 2023, from “complications of diabetes”, a disease that required constant monitoring and care, and 30-year-old Chad Markum died from “Sepsis due to…pneumonia” on April 1, 2023, at Ventress Correctional Facility. 

Smoothing the transition with federal resources

A major obstacle to relieving some of this pressure by moving older and infirm people into the community for care is the inability to start or restart a person’s Medicare or Medicaid benefits until after they are released from prison. ADOC and YesCare are keenly aware of this issue.

In August of 2024, Ms. Henderson at Appleseed was contacted by a YesCare worker regarding a case involving a man named Jamaal Mabry. Mr. Mabry was stabbed in the back while serving his sentence, leaving him quadriplegic with only minimal use of his left arm. By the time the YesCare worker contacted Ms. Henderson she had applied 3 times for Medicaid on behalf of Mr. Mabry and was denied each time due to his incarcerated status. However, because he lacked Medicaid coverage, which he would be eligible for due to his disability, the YesCare worker was unable to place him in a nursing home or care facility. For months, Appleseed attempted to find a placement and figure out a way around these obstacles.

Eventually, Appleseed attorney Scott Fuqua was able to secure Mr. Mabry a placement at a nursing home only after taking extraordinary measures to ensure the cost of caring for his first month’s stay would be paid for. Mr. Mabry was released from prison on April 4, 2026. 

“They wouldn’t take him without assurance that that was going to be paid for, one way or the other,” Ms. Henderson said. Because she filed for his benefits as soon as he was released, once the application is processed those benefits will start retroactively and cover costs incurred from the day the application was sent, but providing that payment guarantee to places like nursing homes is a massive obstacle to helping incarcerated people reenter their communities. 

“Just trying to get someone into a nursing home is hard enough, but trying to get them in while they’re incarcerated is almost impossible,” Ms. Henderson said. 

Despite this difficult reality, there exists a solution that other states are using. Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration waivers can be used in many different ways, including for those who are incarcerated specifically by establishing or reestablishing Medicaid coverage prior to someone’s release from incarceration in order to streamline the reentry process.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has begun emphasizing the use of the 1115 waiver in reentry, stating, “Section 5032(b) of the SUPPORT Act makes clear that the purpose of this demonstration opportunity is ‘to improve care transitions for certain individuals who are soon-to-be former inmates of a public institution and who are otherwise eligible to receive medical assistance under title XIX.’” 

To date, 20 states have been approved to use the 1115 waiver for reentry and five other states have applied. Of the 5 southern states that have applied– Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky– Kentucky, West Virginia, and North Carolina approved so far. The program allows incarcerated people to enroll in Medicaid 90 days before their release. In addition to Medicaid enrollment and reinstatement, the waiver can provide increased access to case management prior to release, as it does in Kentucky, for example. This broadens its usefulness, as use of the waiver can serve even those aging who aren’t headed to a nursing home post release, who simply need better access to resources and care prior to release so they can be more on their way to getting jobs and moving forward. In order to make this happen, Alabama’s State Medicaid Director would need to write and submit a proposal for an 1115 waiver program, outlining what its goals would be. If approved, State Medicaid and the Department of Corrections would need to work closely to ensure the program is being utilized in an effective and efficient way. Other state entities that might benefit from the program include the Department of Mental Health, the Nursing Home Association, Senior Services, and the Department of Rehabilitation Services.

On the other end of the spectrum, several of Appleseed’s older clients are employed well into their 60s and after decades in prison. Milton Hambright, 63, landed a job as a forklift operator at a Cullman manufacturing company less than two weeks after being released on parole. He has a side job as the handyman at the Cullman Reentry Addiction Assistance, his transitional housing placement. 

Larry Garrett

Larry Garrett, 71, is employed by Western Express driving tractor trailers and is constantly on the road. Both of these men spent more than three decades behind bars, yet somehow maintained their health and are determined to contribute to the economy and be self-sufficient, despite the state taking so many years of their lives. 

Their resilience and vigor prove what’s possible when sensible resentencing is combined with holistic reentry support. 

Policy Director Elaine Burdeshaw and Executive Director Carla Crowder contributed to this report.

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Alabama Appleseed Applauds Agreement for a Prison Oversight Pilot Program

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Years of relentless advocacy by families of incarcerated Alabamians has resulted in a new prison oversight pilot program to create transparency and accountability at the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Families of incarcerated Alabamians celebrate their role in securing an agreement for enhanced prison oversight in the Alabama Senate. From left, Sylvia Wright, Cindy Hamilton, Beth Smith, Tim Mathis, and Shantelle Quinley

Sen. Larry Stutts, R-Tuscumbia, who sponsored SB 316, the prison oversight bill, announced this development Wednesday on the Senate Floor. Stutts and Senate Pro Tem, Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, acknowledged the contributions of a small group of parents, who were present in the Gallery. These families have faithfully pursued prison reform and safer conditions across ADOC by advocating at the State House, collecting photos and videos of horrific violence, and sharing their findings through mass emails. 

“We’re exponentially further along because of you,” Sen. Gudger told the families.

The agreement hammered out this week draws on elements of SB 316 by creating a process where certain employees at the Office of the Examiners of Public Accounts will visit selected prisons for inspections at any time (“golden key access”), collect and report data that’s made available to the public, and provide recommendations for improvement. 

“I feel like we’ve arrived at a really good position that is going to make a difference with the Department of Corrections in the coming years,” Sen. Stutts said. 

Appleseed’s Elaine Burdeshaw and advocates for prison oversight celebrate at the Alabama Statehouse.

Appleseed initially developed a prison oversight bill in 2024, which helped lead to the passage of SB 322, creating ADOC’s constituent services unit. Appleseed revisited the oversight bill this year and in collaboration with impacted families has been sharing data and stories of continued violence and dysfunction with the ADOC. “We are just moms and dads, regular people who experienced the reality of this system personally and could not unhear or unsee what’s happening inside,” said Cindy Hamilton, of Tuscaloosa, one of the group’s leaders.

The Oscar-nominated documentary, The Alabama Solution, illuminated the depth of the crisis for new audiences, spurring additional advocacy through the NoMore campaign. Additional support for oversight was provided by the national organization FAMM.

Supporters of prison oversight, including Appleseed’s Policy and Advocacy Director Elaine Burdeshaw, gathered at the Alabama Statehouse for a hearing.

“The newly announced pilot program to create more outside oversight of the Department of Corrections is positive movement that we are proud of. We believe this program will help bring some sunshine to a department that has long been shrouded in darkness, creating more transparency for the legislature, public, and families,” said Elaine Burdeshaw, Appleseed’s Policy and Advocacy Director. “We are grateful to Sen. Stutts, Pro Tem Gudger, and all the state departments who came to the table to make this possible. Most of all, we are grateful to the families and currently and formerly incarcerated people who continue to inform both our work on this issue and the solutions that will address it. As Pro Tem Gudger said, we wouldn’t be where we are now without them.”

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Thirty-two-year old Marvin Taylor was beaten inside Ventress prison. So why does his death certificate say he died of natural causes?

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SB 316, Alabama’s Prison Oversight Bill, Has Been Filed. Now Let’s Get It Passed.

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More oversight, transparency, and accountability could be coming to the Alabama Department of Corrections under SB 316, filed last week by Sen. Larry Stutts, R-Tuscumbia.

Sen. Larry Stutts, R-Tuscumbia

This bill is the result of years of investigations, litigation, and escalating prison expenditures that have failed to alleviate extreme violence, dysfunction, and the highest prison death rates in the country.  It comes as families of incarcerated Alabamians have increased their advocacy and outreach to elected leaders.

Core components of SB 316:

  • Increases the responsibilities and authority of the position within the Department of Examiners of Public Accounts that was created by Sen. Chambliss’s SB322 in 2024 to serve the Joint Prison Oversight Committee– naming it the Prison Oversight Coordinator.
    • Allows the Prison Oversight Coordinator to visit any DOC facility for inspections at any time (“golden key access”), collect and report data that’s made available to the public, and provide recommendations for improvement, and gives them authority to investigate complaints from incarcerated people, their families, and correctional staff. 
  • Creates a Corrections Oversight Board.
    • Made of lawmakers, medical and mental health professionals, formerly incarcerated people, family members of incarcerated people, and more. Tasked with holding at least one public hearing a year and reviewing the data, inspections and recommendations provided by the Examiners employee. 
  • Removes investigation authority from the Department of Correction’s Law Enforcement Services Division and places it with the State Bureau of Investigations.
    • There have been documented issues with investigations within DOC facilities. Placing that authority with the State Bureau of Investigations provides a more transparent and independent process. 
  • Provides one special prosecutor to each DA’s office with a major DOC facility in their district.

All prison-related criminal cases are referred to the local DA’s office, but these offices are overwhelmed by the large numbers of cases coming in and unable to prioritize them. Providing a special prosecutor to each office with a major facility in its district will help provide the needed resources and capacity to ensure crimes happening inside DOC facilities, by officers and incarcerated people alike, are handled appropriately. 

This legislation comes seven years in a crisis first identified by the U.S. Department of Justice.

In 2019, DOJ declared Alabama’s prisons for men unconstitutional. More than 1,500 Alabamians in prison have died since then. Meanwhile, the state has spent more than $5 billion on the prison system in the last five years – more than we’ve spent on public health, mental health, and child services combined. These costly prisons remain the deadliest in America.

On Ash Wednesday, Alabamians gathered on the Capitol Steps to remember those who died in state prison custody. Photo by Bernard Troncale

  • Alabama’s prison mortality rate has been far higher than any other state in the nation for at least 2 years in a row. In 2023 and 2024, Alabama’s death rate was more than 100 deaths per 100,000 people. No other state comes close. 

The crisis at DOC is acute, and past efforts to improve prison culture and conditions have yet to produce noticeable positive outcomes. 

  • Increased officer pay has brought in new officers– but significant numbers of current officers have been fired due to misconduct or criminal charges. Many more have serious documented allegations of misconduct, but the culture of ADOC and bureaucratic impediments restrict the ability for them to be disciplined or removed. The staff vacancy rate remains above 50%. 
  • Efforts to increase programming and positive culture, like the creation of educational incentive time credits– an effort led by Sen. Chambliss, the Chair of the Joint Prison Oversight Committee– have not been implemented because of the dysfunction. 
  • Even the costly construction of new prisons, despite the benefits that do exist, will not solve the underlying culture.

While many are aware of severe problems that exist at ADOC, increased transparency is necessary to weed out the roots of the dysfunction – where exactly are the problems coming from and how have they persisted, and even increased, despite the State being on notice from federal authorities for more than 6 years. With an ongoing crisis in Alabama’s prisons, there is no indication that change can or will happen on its own, regardless of leadership’s intentions.

While passing this form of oversight legislation now would be more responsive in nature, it would eventually act as a prevention mechanism— to avoid poor conditions and lawsuits, and keep us from ever getting to this point in the first place. Read more from bill sponsor Sen. Larry Stutts here.

Appleseed encourages Alabamians to reach out to their state legislators and express support for SB 316. Tell them:

As your constituent, I hope you will consider this issue– what’s at stake for incarcerated people and their families, correctional officers, our state budgets, and public safety– and encourage you to support Sen. Stutts’ legislation when you have the opportunity.

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Families from Florence, Dothan, Tuscaloosa, Prattville and Countless Places In Between Line the Alabama Capitol Steps Honoring the Hundreds of Lives Lost in Alabama State Prisons

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By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

Stephanie Lewis stood in front of the Alabama State Capitol steps with hundreds of others on Wednesday and pleaded for the system that allowed her husband to die to change. 

“It has to change. I know his life was not in vain,” Mrs. Lewis said of her husband’s January death at the Childersburg Work Release facility in Alpine. She’s still seeking answers from the Alabama Department of Corrections, but others inside the facility have said his death involved excessive force by officers. 

At least 202 people died inside Alabama prisons in 2025, which was nearly three times the national average. That was a drop from the 277 deaths in Alabama prisons in 2024, following another slight decline from the record high 327 in 2023.

On Ash Wednesday, Alabamians gathered on the Capitol Steps to remember those who died in state prison custody.

More than 1,500 Alabamians have died in state prison custody since Alabama’s elected officials were put on notice by the federal government in 2019 that state prisons were plagued by mismanagement, corruption, understaffing, nonexistent investigations, and violence, including homicides and sexual assaults.

On Wednesday, hundreds of family members harmed by these losses and advocates calling for change met outside the state Capitol to demand action. The Oscar-nominated documentary “The Alabama Solution” tells the plight of men inside the state’s deadly prisons fighting for change from inside. The film’s impact campaign “No More” helped organize Wednesday’s gathering. 

“I’m here today to seek justice for my son, who they murdered,” Sandy Ray, from Uniontown, told those gathered on Wednesday. Her son, Steven Davis, was beaten to death by officers in 2019. “And for all of you.” 

A woman grieves at a vigil for the 1,500 lives lost in Alabama prisons

The film documented the ADOC’s response to Mr. Davis’s beating death, which involved a $250,000 settlement paid to Ms. Ray, yet the officer involved remains on the state payroll and has been promoted to lieutenant.

Terry Williams spoke to Appleseed by phone prior to Wednesday’s vigil. His 22-year-old son, Daniel Terry Williams, was likely smothered to death in November 2023, according to the state’s chief medical examiner, and there was evidence on his body that corroborate what witnesses have said was his kidnapping and torture over a period of several days inside Staton Correctional Facility. He died the day he was set to be released from prison.

“It hurts a lot, knowing what he had to go through, and I couldn’t help him,” Mr. Williams said. 

Despite witnesses who saw Daniel Williams being held against his will in a secure prison staffed with officers, and despite clear medical evidence pointing to homicide and a suspect identified, that suspect has not been charged in Mr. Williams’s death. To date, no one has been criminally charged in connection with his death, which made headlines across the country and altered Alabama lawmakers that nothing they or the Administration had done in the four years since the DOJ report was released had sufficiently addressed deadly prison violence. 

Daniel Terry Williams, 22, was likely smothered to death on November 7, 2022 inside Staton Correctional Facility.

Appleseed’s executive director, Carla Crowder, addressed the Legislature’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee in a December 2023 meeting and presented documentation of ADOC failures that contributed to the death, part of a pattern of failures that has resulted in assaults, rapes, and killings of incarcerated individuals, many of whom were sent to prison for drug treatment and rehabililation.  “The 38-year-old suspect in this kidnapping, rape and torture was involved in nine instances of sex assault, rape, and stabbing since 2017 in ADOC while incarcerated. … There is no documentation that he was placed in segregation for any of these assaults. There was no disciplinary action by ADOC,” she said.

Daniel Willaims’ father questions how prison staff would allow such a thing to happen, and said he is seeking justice that so far hasn’t been offered to his family. “Put them in a single cell for the rest of their lives. I want them to sit there and think about what they did,” Mr. Williams said. 

Kelly Ballentine with her grandson, Wayland, drove all the way from Florence to attend the vigil.

Tim Mathis lost his son to an overdose inside Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4, 2024, minutes after talking to his father by phone. Mr. Mathis, from Dothan, frequently appears before lawmakers demanding accountability and reform.

Overdose deaths, and especially those deaths known or suspected of being caused by fentanyl, have soared in the state’s prisons. The overdose mortality rate in Alabama’s prisons in 2023 of 435 per 100,000 people was 20 times the national rate across state prisons.

What his son’s autopsy report shows is that the state’s medical examiner believes Chase died of accidental “mixed Drug toxicity (fentanyl and fluorofentanyl).” Fluorofentanyl is a synthetic form of fentanyl first produced in the 1960s.

“There’s probably been someone who’s died in the system while we’ve been standing here,” Mr. Mathis said to those assembled outside the Capitol.

Dothan father, Tim Mathis, speaks about his son, Chase Mathis, who entered prison in a wheelchair and never came home. Photo by Bernard Troncale

Asked by Appleseed whether he believes some of Alabama’s decision-makers in Montgomery aren’t aware of the prison crisis, Mr. Mathis explained that he thinks it might be more complicated than that.  “Some of them just don’t know. Some of them are just ignorant to it, and then again, maybe some of them don’t want to know,” he said. 

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