A federal judge has concluded two Colorado inmates failed to plausibly allege the state’s Department of Corrections violated their rights through its prison work program, which generally requires detainees to participate or lose privileges.

Although the plaintiffs repeatedly referenced Colorado voters’ 2018 decision to amend the state constitution to eliminate slavery and involuntary servitude in all circumstances, U.S. Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter could not understand why their lawsuit instead claimed violations of two unrelated federal laws: a 20-year-old statute protecting human trafficking victims and an organized crime law originally targeted at the Mafia.

“The Court is puzzled why Plaintiffs chose such a convoluted and legally deficient way to accomplish what it suspects is Plaintiffs’ ultimate goal: to challenge the CDOC’s inmate work requirement under the Colorado constitution,” Neureiter wrote.

By a 2-to-1 margin, voters in 2018 chose to pass Amendment A, eliminating the provision in the Colorado constitution that permitted forced labor only for those who were being punished for a crime. Since the enactment of that categorical ban on involuntary servitude, legal challenges have surfaced to Colorado’s current prison labor framework.

In August, the state’s Court of Appeals, in a non-precedent-setting opinion, dismissed another inmate’s lawsuit. A three-judge panel ruled that voters did not intend to abolish the prison work program by amending the constitution, and that the threatened loss of privileges or low compensation did not equate to involuntary servitude.

Another proposed class action lawsuit was filed earlier this year in light of Amendment A, seeking to strike down the state law mandating a prison labor program. The detailed allegations in that lawsuit explain Amendment A does not prohibit inmates from working voluntarily, but rather prevents the government from being able to “coerce subminimum wage labor from a captive workforce.”

A Denver District Court judge is currently considering the government’s motion to dismiss that litigation.

In the case before the federal court, John Patrick Fletcher, who resides at the Buena Vista Correctional Facility, and Zachariah Clark Dobler, who is incarcerated at the Limon Correctional Facility, sued the Department of Corrections’ director and several case managers for allegedly forcing them into involuntary prison labor. While they did not detail the nature of their work assignments, they both alleged physical injuries from their work.

Fletcher and Dobler, representing themselves in court, wrote that corrections personnel “threaten Plaintiffs with physical restraint and other punitive sanctions” to compel them to work.

However, the 13 claims they lodged in federal court did not challenge the department’s prison work program as being contrary to Amendment A. Instead, Fletcher and Dobler claimed the defendants violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which Congress originally enacted in 2000 to give human trafficking victims a means to sue their perpetrators for forced servitude or slavery. 

The plaintiffs also brought claims pursuant to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, contending the corrections department reaps indirect income from inmates’ forced labor in what amounts to a criminal enterprise.

The defendants argued Colorado’s prison work program is not the same as involuntary servitude. Inmates who choose not to participate, they pointed out, are not subject to punishment. Instead, they lose their privileges, lose their good time credits used for parole calculations, and face up to 15 days under more restrictive housing conditions – but not solitary confinement.

“And, because inmates have no entitlement to privileges, withholding them as a consequence of not working is not so coercive as to constitute involuntary servitude or forced labor,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Ann Stanton.

She added that no legal authority supported the idea that a “small modification to state law can give rise to a violation of federal anti-human-trafficking statutes.”

In August, Neureiter recommended dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims, in large part because it was unclear what work Fletcher and Dobler actually performed while in prison. Although the human trafficking protections stemmed from the prohibition on slavery contained in the 13th Amendment, Neureiter noted the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in contrast to Colorado’s constitution, does permit involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime.

“If Plaintiffs are challenging the (inmate) work rules in Colorado correctional facilities as being violative of Colorado’s amended state constitution, they should probably be suing under that state constitutional provision in Colorado state court, not federal court,” he added.

The plaintiffs objected in general terms to Neureiter’s recommendation, but U.S. District Court Chief Judge Philip A. Brimmer agreed with the magistrate judge’s analysis and adopted it on Sept. 30. Brimmer observed Fletcher and Dobler’s work experience appeared to be in line with the state law that requires a prison labor program.

The case is Fletcher et al. v. Williams et al.