Sonnenschein has a long and proud history of defending those whose civil rights have come under assault. Whether they have faced violence or intimidation, confronted barriers to equal treatment, been unfairly incarcerated, or seen their rights abridged in other ways, our pro bono civil rights clients know they can count on the support and counsel of deeply committed and talented Sonnenschein lawyers. These lawyers work assiduously on behalf of their clients because they recognize the enormous significance of their work and because they know our firm is deeply committed to upholding civil rights.
Representative Engagements
Team of Lawyers Defends Rights of an Ailing Prison Inmate
Montell Johnson is 41 and has advanced multiple sclerosis. He is serving a life sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) and was diagnosed with MS in 2001. By the time he was transferred to Dixon Correctional Center in Dixon, Ill., in the spring of 2006 he was bedridden. He could no longer walk, had only limited use of his arms, and was dependent on others for feeding and other care in the prison infirmary.
Mr. Johnson’s mother, Gloria Johnson-Ester, had been trying to get better care for her son for years when she met Sonnenschein’s Harold Hirshman a year ago. In spring and summer 2007, she believed that Mr. Johnson’s condition was seriously worsening—he had bedsores and he was becoming weaker. Ms. Johnson-Ester has a medical power of attorney for Mr. Johnson, but prison officials never consulted her regarding her son’s medical care, and, beginning in July 2007, the prison denied her requests to visit her son, claiming he was refusing to see her. Harold wrote repeatedly to prison officials about Mr. Johnson beginning in April 2007. In June, prison officials finally sent our client to a neurologist. But the neurologist could not even see Mr. Johnson’s bedsores because guards refused to remove Mr. Johnson’s shackles for the examination.
Sonnenschein filed suit on behalf of Mr. Johnson and his mother last July, asserting that Dixon’s warden and the medical personnel responsible for his care (the Dixon medical director, the head of nursing care, and IDOC’s medical director) had violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, as well as violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments by interfering with Ms. Johnson-Ester’s communications with her son. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that Mr. Johnson had not exhausted his administrative remedies because he had failed to file a grievance concerning his poor medical care, notwithstanding the fact that he cannot write or speak intelligibly, and that his mental state has been impaired by MS. The motion to dismiss was denied. Meanwhile, Dixon officials still refused to allow meetings between mother and son.
In October, Mr. Johnson’s health deteriorated further resulting in his being transferred to the local Dixon hospital and ultimately to the University of Illinois hospital, where he remains. In December, after multiple efforts by the Sonnenschein team in Chicago, which also includes Camille Bennett, Lauren Goodkin and Scott Mascianica, the court entered an injunction prohibiting Mr. Johnson from being returned to the Dixon infirmary and ordering the prison to consult with Mr. Johnson’s counsel and mother regarding a suitable nursing home placement. The defendants have filed for summary judgment; Sonnenschein is hoping for a trial in early 2008.
Victory in Hate Crime Case
Sonnenschein helped a hate crime victim win, and collect on, a $25,000 settlement. In June 2004, an African American client of the firm, Mr. Plott, left a night club in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood along with two friends. While they were talking in a nearby alley, they were approached by the defendant, George Syregelas, and two of his friends. Without provocation, Mr. Syregelas demeaned Mr. Plott with racial epithets and struck him on the head with a wooden pole. In 2006, working closely with the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, attorneys in Sonnenschein's St. Louis office filed a three-count complaint against Mr. Syregelas, seeking compensatory and punitive damages for common law assault and battery and violation of the Illinois Hate Crime Act. Jim Klenk and Jacque McCray of the firm's Chicago office handled the case. Mr. Syregelas has made good on the $25,000 settlement, a remarkable result, given how difficult it often is to collect on such settlements.
High-Profile Discrimination Case Makes Way to U.S. Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a lower court's ruling last summer affirming the jurisdiction of tribal courts in certain disputes involving Native Americans. Sonnenschein has been closely involved in the case for several years and shared in the victory last June when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit affirmed the sovereignty of American Indian tribal courts in a federal lawsuit challenging the authority of the tribal courts of the Cheyenne River Sioux to hear a discrimination case brought by tribe members against a non-Indian bank.
Roger Heidenreich of St. Louis collaborated in that victory, along with Washington University School of Law's American Indian Law and Economic Development Program and local attorneys in South Dakota, filing a friend of the court brief on behalf of the tribe. Roger also filed an amicus brief when the case was heard in district court. The federal case stems from a tribal court jury's nearly $1 million discrimination verdict in 2003 in favor of a South Dakota couple who said a bank rescinded an offer of a loan for their ranching business because they were tribe members. The verdict was upheld on appeal by a tribal court of appeals. The 8th Circuit affirmed the 2003 verdict, ruling that prevailing federal law recognized the authority of tribal courts to rule in the matter. The court also affirmed the role of tribal custom and common law in suits in tribal courts.
Up until now, Roger observed, the case involved just a few lawyers on each side. Now, with the Supreme Court granting the defendant's petition for ( judicial review), and perhaps hundreds of lawyers taking part, the widely reported case will take on an even higher profile and greater significance.
