From The Advocate: Federal trial on Angola’s ‘Farm Line’ forced labor has ended. Here’s where things stand.

A team of prison reformists made their final push to convince a federal judge to order an end to “degrading and dehumanizing” labor for field workers on the so-called Farm Line at the state’s oldest and lone maximum-security prison.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola became a state-run prison in 1901 when the state purchased the former slave plantation from the family of deceased Confederate Army major Samuel Lawrence James. The prison farm sits on more than 18,000 acres of property in West Feliciana.

Joshua Hill Jr., a New York City attorney, was part of the legal team that argued on behalf of thousands of Angola’s prisoners during a trial in a class-action lawsuit. He delivered the plaintiffs’ closing argument Tuesday and said Angola has a distinctly “indelible” mark as a prison due to its sordid past.

“We really can’t explain why the state is clinging so desperately to these practices at Angola,” Hill said. “But LSP has a unique responsibility because it is built on the grounds of former plantations. And when you have this kind of history, you cannot leverage conditions and logics of slavery to punish (prisoners).”

Yet as the six-day trial in the U.S. Middle District Courthouse in Baton Rouge concluded Tuesday, state officials said such sweeping changes to the prison’s Farm Line operations could have detrimental effects on the prison as a whole.

“The relief that they’re requesting is going to end the Farm Line. If you end the Farm Line, we’re not going to have any more produce,” said Andrew Blanchfield, the lead attorney defending the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections and state prison officials against the plaintiffs’ allegations.

“If you issue an order that says once it hits an 88-degree heat index that we’ve got to stop doing things outside,” Blanchfield told the judge. “You’re going to end more than just the Farm Line. You’re going to end LSP.”

U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson presided over the civil trial. He said it will take about a month for his staff to compile trial transcripts and gave attorneys from both sides 21 days to submit their post-trial pleadings after receiving those transcripts. Then it will be up to Jackson to determine if the Farm Line poses any constitutional violations, and if so, to issue a ruling to rectify those infringements.

“I’m keenly aware that the issues in this case are of absolute critical importance to everyone. And the court is committed to issuing a ruling in the case as soon as possible, once all the pleadings come in,” Jackson said. “Let me assure you that my entire will be helping to fashion an order that we believe is justified by the law and the facts of the case.”

Promise of Justice Initiative, a New Orleans-based civil rights advocacy organization, filed suit on behalf of seven named prisoners in September 2023. The petition alleged that Louisiana DOC officials violated the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment restrictions on cruel and unusual punishment for prisoners by operating the Farm Line in a punitive way.

Incarcerated individuals assigned to work the line are required to put in intensive hours of labor on the prison’s sprawling fields as they plant and cultivate produce for the prison population. Many of the prison’s new incarcerated laborers are forced to work without pay, while other Farm Line workers are paid a few cents per hour.

Prior  to trial, Jackson imposed safety measures that forced the prison’s wardens to issue “heat alerts” whenever the outdoor heat index reached or exceeded 88 degrees. The alerts trigger protective measures such as bringing heat-sensitive workers inside and offering other workers scheduled rest breaks in shaded areas to offset effects from the exhaustive heat levels.

Jackson in July 2024 ordered the prison to add more shade, make sun screen and other personal protective equipment available and to implement other heat relief for workers. 

The plaintiffs allege Angola’s policies pose a substantial risk of heat-related injury for workers toiling in the fields during Louisiana’s extreme summertime conditions. 

They sought to show that state prison officials are not doing enough to identify incarcerated men at Angola who suffer with thermoregulatory impairments that make them particularly susceptible to heat exhaustion. And the prison has failed to take steps to protect those workers from the sweltering humidity when heat alerts are triggered.

“Given that the Farm Line will always be a prison plantation on the grounds of a former slave plantation in a region where it is oppressively hot – and the defendants are aware of those immutable characteristics – what really matters here for the court is what are the defendants doing to abate the harms,” Hill said. “The evidence shows they have not done nearly enough.”

He asked the judge to enjoin the Farm Line from operating in its current form “unless it can be made right.”

To bring the field duty into compliance with the Constitution, Hill proposed that Angola stop using the Farm Line as a tool to punish prisoners and make it a work assignment like any other on the prison’s grounds. Hill also asked the judge to add a vocational element that teaches workers useful agricultural skills. The plaintiffs also pushed for Farm Line workers to get a higher wage. 

But DOC attorneys noted that all the prisoners on the Farm Line have been sentenced to hard labor. Blanchfield noted that the 13th Amendment makes room for forced labor as a punishment for crime, an exception built into constitutional protections against slavery and involuntary servitude.

He reminded the judge that DOC officials already monitor the heat index on Angola’s Farm Line once an hour and give prisoners 15-minute breaks for ever 45 minutes of work when heat alerts are triggered. Workers are provided unlimited ice and water, sunscreen, gloves, hats and the prison has built 25 shade pavilions on the farm grounds. 

“Extensive measures have been taken to mitigate any risk of the heat,” Blanchfield said. “Work on the Farm Line is not made more difficult than it needs to be. We plant seeds with machines. The only thing that they do is they pick the produce by hand. It’s manual labor; tools are provided.”

Jackson asked Blanchfield to explain why he felt it would “end LSP” if the court imposes a mandate that forces the prison to pull all heat-sensitive field workers during heat alerts.

“Depending on the numbers, you have almost half of the prison population with heat-precaution duty statuses,” Blanchfield said. “So if you say that when the heat-index hits 88, everything outside stops, that’s going to put such a hamper on LSP. We’ve got a lot of stuff going on in the afternoons outside.”