A Vermont man suing the state under the 13th Amendment for the labor he was forced to perform while awaiting trial in jail will get his day in court.

Finbar McGarry was a graduate student at the University of Vermont in December 2008 when he was arrested for allegedly firing a gun in his home and threatening to kill his family and an official at the university, where he had recently lost his job. His lawsuit alleges that the state violated his rights under the 13th Amendment -- which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude after the Civil War -- when he was forced to work in the laundry for minimal pay as an inmate in the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, Vt.

McGarry, who filed the $11-million lawsuit pro se, said he was forced to work three days a week for six weeks washing other inmates' laundry. He was paid a wage of 25 cents per hour and developed a bacterial infection on his neck because he was not provided sanitation in the laundry room, he told ABC News in an interview Thursday.

Prison officials threatened to put McGarry "in the hole," where inmates are shackled and locked up for 23 hours per day in solitary confinement, if he refused to work, he said.

McGarry was released in June 2009, and all charges against him were dropped.

McGarry's anti-slavery case was thrown out in November 2009 by a federal court in Brattleboro, Vt. In his opinion, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Conroy wrote that McGarry's 13th Amendment claim was without merit because his laundry work "was nothing like the slavery that gave rise to the enactment of that amendment."

But on Friday, a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overruled the lower court's dismissal of the case, arguing that McGarry did not have to prove that his experience was akin those of African slaves before abolition.

"Contrary to the district court's conclusion, it is well-settled that the term 'involuntary servitude' is not limited to chattel slavery-like conditions," appellate judge Barrington Parker wrote in the court's opinion. "The amendment was intended to prohibit all forms of involuntary labor, not solely to abolish chattel slavery."

Supreme Court precedent has established that the constitutional rights of pretrial detainees are distinct from those of convicted inmates, because criminal convictions can justify certain punishments, Parker argued.

The appellate panel remanded McGarry's case to the district court, where he will get a new trial. The state has 90 days to appeal the panel's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"If you haven't been convicted at all, your pretrial detention is not a form of punishment," said Columbia Law School professor Jamal Greene. "The degree to which his liberty can be restricted is directly tied to the needs that required him to be detained. So if he was detained only to secure himself for trial, he can't be detained for punishment."

David McLean, an assistant attorney general for Vermont, said it has never been the policy of the state's Department of Corrections to compel pretrial detainees to perform manual labor, but he refused to comment on McGarry's case.

McGarry pointed to a 1986 policy under which the department developed employment programs designed to help inmates gain employable skills and reduce the cost of incarceration. The policy did not distinguish between convicts and pretrial detainees.

"At that facility, that's what was happening. It was a 'rehabilitative' labor policy, and all inmates were expected to participate in it," he said. "It was a practice that affected a lot of pretrial detainees."

The Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility does not only house inmates awaiting trial. Unlike larger states, where county jails house the accused and state prisons house convicts, Vermont's correctional system mixes the two.

In a separate lawsuit he filed while he was in jail, McGarry's chief concern was not the Constitution; it was getting injunctive relief to prevent the state from forcing him to do more labor. During his 14-hour shifts, he said, he was unable to contact his public defender, causing him to fear that his case would not be handled properly. Other pretrial detainees had similar concerns, he said.

As a result of his lawsuit, which became moot upon his release, prison officials placed a hold on him to allow him to avoid labor, though he was still mistakenly forced to work on two occasions.

While all inmates may be expected to clean up their cells or wipe down tables in the mess hall, Greene said, the poorly paid, unsafe work McGarry alleged he was forced to do may have crossed a legal boundary.

"There is no distinct line here," Greene said. "But the closer [the job] gets to being something you do as part of the group, the more likely it is to be upheld by a court. The further away you get -- like being subjected to something unusual or forced labor -- it sounds like he might very well have a legitimate claim here."

Greene said that, in the past, the lower federal courts have rejected claims that general housekeeping prisons required of inmates qualified as forced labor, but the Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on cases involving additional labor, like McGarry's laundry work.

Melissia wrote:He wasn't yet convicted, so I can see this being legitimate.

Wyrmalla wrote:Quote Stephen Fry after visiting an American Prison, "Its like modern day slavery". Sure you can call it a work program, but its just a sub ethical way of getting a lot of cheap labour, and seeing as a large part of the US manufacturing industry is made up of convicts (again quote Mr Fry)its what allows them to compete with other world powers. =P

LordofHats wrote:

Wyrmalla wrote:Quote Stephen Fry after visiting an American Prison, "Its like modern day slavery". Sure you can call it a work program, but its just a sub ethical way of getting a lot of cheap labour, and seeing as a large part of the US manufacturing industry is made up of convicts (again quote Mr Fry)its what allows them to compete with other world powers. =P

You say sub-ethical, I say brilliant business planning

But nah, I've heard of seriously disturbing things, especially in privately run prisons. Like how inmates at times work for eighteen hours a day in no air conditioning/heat doing work with power tools and equipment that is not regularly inspected or properly maintained while not having any of the appropriate safety gear for what they're doing.

But then, they're prisoners, so I don't care if they're life sucks. Should have considered that before knocking over Papa O'Macky's gas stations

Horst wrote:Prison should be a place for rehabilitation of criminals, not the punishment of criminals.

Criminals who have no chance of rehab should be put down.

Criminals who can be rehabilitated should be, and forcing them into slave labor conditions will do nothing to help them, except turn them into resentful monsters when they are released.

Melissia wrote:He wasn't yet convicted, so I can see this being legitimate.

Once you're convicted, get your ass to work. But before that? You're not a criminal yet.

Prison should be a place for rehabilitation of criminals, not the punishment of criminals.

Mr Hyena wrote:

Prison should be a place for rehabilitation of criminals, not the punishment of criminals.

At what point does punishment of criminals happen then?

SilverMK2 wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:

Prison should be a place for rehabilitation of criminals, not the punishment of criminals.

At what point does punishment of criminals happen then?

I'd imagine it would be the whole being locked away from society and having your freedoms restricted.

Mr Hyena wrote:Agreeable...though with access to Facebook, PS3s and SkyTV does that really count as being 'locked away' from society?

SilverMK2 wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:Agreeable...though with access to Facebook, PS3s and SkyTV does that really count as being 'locked away' from society?

I'm not going to comment on the current prison system since I don't know too much about what people have access to and what the do not and the different levels of prison there are and the kinds of people who go to them.

However I could see some types of ciminals being given access to these items/services as part of their "rehabilitation" while others are refused them.

Mr Hyena wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:

Prison should be a place for rehabilitation of criminals, not the punishment of criminals.

At what point does punishment of criminals happen then?

I'd imagine it would be the whole being locked away from society and having your freedoms restricted.

Agreeable...though with access to Facebook, PS3s and SkyTV does that really count as being 'locked away' from society?

ShumaGorath wrote:Have you ever even driven by a prison?

ShumaGorath wrote:I thought prison work programs were generally opt in? That actually does kinda sound like slavery.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:He wasn't yet convicted, so I can see this being legitimate.

That doesn't actually have much bearing on the slavery case. That'd be an entirely different lawsuit were that the basis of it.

Jihadin wrote:Its probaly going to come down to whats the written policy of the prison he was in.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:

Prison should be a place for rehabilitation of criminals, not the punishment of criminals.

At what point does punishment of criminals happen then?

I'd imagine it would be the whole being locked away from society and having your freedoms restricted.

Agreeable...though with access to Facebook, PS3s and SkyTV does that really count as being 'locked away' from society?

Where does the prison system give offenders computers with facebook, televisions with sattelite, and Playstation 3s? Is this just the total contents of a minimum security rec room or something? Have you ever even driven by a prison?

Mr Hyena wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:

Prison should be a place for rehabilitation of criminals, not the punishment of criminals.

At what point does punishment of criminals happen then?

I'd imagine it would be the whole being locked away from society and having your freedoms restricted.

Agreeable...though with access to Facebook, PS3s and SkyTV does that really count as being 'locked away' from society?

Where does the prison system give offenders computers with facebook, televisions with sattelite, and Playstation 3s? Is this just the total contents of a minimum security rec room or something? Have you ever even driven by a prison?

UK prisons of all kinds. US prisons go with a better system.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:UK prisons of all kinds. US prisons go with a better system.

Is that why we have the worst prison recidivism rates and the largest imprissoned population per capita in the western world? because we're better? I'm going to call you next time I want to know what time it is. You're practically a clock.