Resource: Puryear v. Dotson

On June 28, 2024, Relman Colfax filed a class action complaint in federal court against the current and former directors of the Virginia Department of Corrections (“VADOC”) for failing to properly implement the state’s “earned sentence credit” (“ESC”) program. The program entitles incarcerated people to ESCs that shorten their sentences when they complete educational and training programs. The complaint alleges that defendants improperly denied dozens if not hundreds of individuals in their custody their lawfully owed credits, thereby wrongfully keeping them in prison for weeks, months, and sometimes more than a year past their proper release date. The suit was filed on behalf of named Plaintiff Leslie Puryear and a class of people serving convictions for inchoate offenses related to robbery and carjacking who should have been released prior to November 2023 but were not. The new lawsuit follows Mr. Puryear’s 2023 habeas petition, in which Relman Colfax and the ACLU-VA secured the release of Mr. Puryear and the other class members.