First Amendment case emerges amid increased attention on slavery and involuntary servitude in Alabama

Nov 3, 2026, Montgomery, Alabama – A formerly incarcerated man today sued the officials who retaliated against him for speaking to the press about forced labor in Alabama’s prisons. After he was quoted in a New York Times article in October 2024, Carlos Anderson endured a series of punishments that caused him to suffer lost wages and severe emotional distress and blatantly violated his First Amendment right to freedom of speech. 

“When you’re in ADOC, officers violate your rights every day, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Mr. Anderson. “The officers know if they write you up you might not make parole, it stresses people out and really messes up a lot of people’s opportunities to get back home to their families. This case is very important because we have to show ADOC they cannot just violate people’s rights.” 

The case emerges amid increased attention on abusive labor practices in Alabama’s notorious prison system. In 2024, six incarcerated workers brought a lawsuit with the Center for Constitutional Rights seeking to abolish involuntary servitude in Alabama’s prisons, and the Oscar-nominated 2025 documentary, The Alabama Solution, sheds light on the state’s deadly prisons and vast system of forced prison labor. Three men featured in the film have also filed a lawsuit after facing retaliation, which, along with Anderson’s case, shows that ADOC officials are routinely trying to silence incarcerated people. 

In 2023, Mr. Anderson was incarcerated at Frank Lee, a minimum-security prison, when, as part of a work release program, he was sent to Ju-Young, a Hyundai parts manufacturing plant in Montgomery. There, in the spring of 2024, he spoke to a Times reporter, telling him that incarcerated people had no choice but to participate in work release programs where they made exploitatively low wages, because the alternative was being forced to work for no pay or other punishment. 

Shortly after the article was published, Bradley Smoke, a lieutenant at Frank Lee, summoned Mr. Anderson to his office, showed him the Times article, and told him he had “messed up” by speaking to the reporter. He issued him a behavior citation, which was approved by Pamela Butler, the captain at the time, and Prince Etheridge, a sergeant. As a result, Mr. Anderson was forced to do thirty days of unpaid labor and stripped of thirty days of phone, visitation, and canteen privileges. 

Smoke also lied to other incarcerated men, telling them that Anderson’s interview with the Times had caused the plant to terminate its contract with the Alabama Department of Corrections. Mr. Anderson faced persistent harassment and threats from men who wrongly believed he had cost them their jobs. Suffering great anxiety as he feared for his safety, he requested to be transferred to another minimum-security prison; instead he was sent to Kilby Correctional Facility, a more violent maximum-security prison where he was not able to participate in work release. 

“It’s hard to imagine a clearer First Amendment retaliation case,” said D. Korbin Felder, Center for Constitutional Rights Staff Attorney at CCR South. “The citation itself says Carlos was punished for his speech. Prison officials wrote him up before his parole hearing – jeopardizing his chance of release – and viciously spread rumors about him, trying to turn other men against him, putting him in danger. All because he told the truth about forced labor in the Alabama prison system.”

Mr. Anderson, who was released on parole in October 2025, is suing Smoke, Etheridge, and Butler under the First Amendment. He seeks compensatory and punitive damages. 

For more information, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights case page.