Decisions

M.D. Fla. March 27, 2026

This is the continuation of C.M. v. Noem after transfer. The court provisionally certified a class defined as “All persons who are currently, or in the future, held at the Alligator Alcatraz detention facility.” Three barriers to access to counsel remained before the court: the requirement that in-person legal visits be arranged in advance, the absence of confidential, free and unmonitored outgoing calls to lawyers, and the failure to publish protocols for attorney access. On telephone calls the court found for the detained plaintiffs, and rejected the account given by the government’s witnesses: “unlike Saunders’ and Lumm’s testimony about unscheduled legal visits, the Court finds their testimony regarding unmonitored, unrecorded legal calls lacking in credibility for the reasons below.” It held that the plaintiffs “have demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on their claims asserting that the facility’s policies regarding monitoring legal phone calls violate their First Amendment free speech rights.” An attorney declaration recorded in the order: “The only way that clients . . . detained at Alligator Alcatraz can call me is still via a monitored, recorded outgoing phone line.” On in-person visits the court found the other way, and believed the same two witnesses: “The Court finds Saunders’ and Lumm’s testimony that unscheduled visits have occurred and will continue to occur credible. And therefore, neither Detained Plaintiffs nor Organizational Plaintiffs can demonstrate a First Amendment violation based on a scheduling requirement for in-person visits.”

Access to counsel First Amendment Class certification Preliminary injunction Monitored telephone calls Conditions of detention

Caution The credibility finding is specific to the evidence about telephone calls. The same witnesses were believed on the separate question of in-person visits. Any account describing the court as having found the government generally not credible overstates the order. At the hearing the plaintiffs abandoned several claims and the court recorded that it therefore did not consider them: the timeliness of legal mail, the confidentiality of in-person and video legal visits, and delays in updating the online detainee locator. This decision circulates under the incorrect caption H.C.R. v. Mullin. There is no party of that name in the case. It also circulates with a description of legal conferences conducted in a cage within earshot of officers. The words cage and auditory appear nowhere in the order, and the confidentiality claim on which such a finding would have rested was withdrawn. That material appears to originate in the report of the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General of September 2026, which is a separate document and not a judicial finding. A reporter citation, 825 F. Supp. 3d 1267, is in circulation and the Coalition has not been able to verify it.