Sexual violence

A federal trial opens Nov. 30 in Huntsville over the Department of Justice's 2020 lawsuit alleging that Alabama's men's prisons are unconstitutionally violent and unsanitary. U.S. District Judge Harold D. Mooty III, without a jury, will decide whether conditions including frequent inmate-on-inmate killings, roughly 30 reported sexual assaults monthly, overcrowding and excessive force by staff amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Prosecutors call the system chronically indifferent to known risks; the state says it has made substantial reforms, including hiring more guards and revising use-of-force policies. The two sides have filed roughly 450 court records, 14,000 potential exhibits, and hundreds of witnesses. The judge expects the trial to last about six weeks.

A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel has thrown out a lower court order requiring Oregon to house transgender women inmates in prisons matching their gender identity. The unanimous ruling, authored by Judge Eric Tung and joined by two other Trump-appointed judges, reversed an April decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark D. Clarke that had mandated individualized safety assessments before placement decisions.

The panel found the plaintiffs failed to show Oregon acted with deliberate indifference toward transgender inmates, saying the lower court relied on outdated evidence and disregarded contrary evidence from the state. Two transgender women had sued the Department of Corrections in 2025, alleging severe risk of sexual and physical violence in men's prisons.

Tung's opinion, which repeatedly referred to transgender women as "male inmates who claim to be female," drew criticism from civil rights attorneys and even Oregon's own Attorney General's Office, which welcomed the outcome but disavowed the court's language. The underlying lawsuit continues in federal district court, and attorneys for the plaintiffs say they intend to keep pursuing the claims.