Albany and New York, NY, July 21, 2020 -After 24 years in solitary confinement, Karen Murtagh, Executive Director of Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York (PLS), and Bijan Amini, founding partner of Amini LLC announced the release from solitary confinement of their client, Imhotep H’Shaka, to the state prison’s general population. He had been confined for almost a quarter of a century to a nine by eleven foot cell, 23 hours a day, with no access to group educational, recreation, therapy or worship opportunities, including minimal preparation for release on parole for which he is eligible later this decade. Just this month the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Services (DOCCS) finally recognized Mr. H’Shaka’s basic constitutional rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments after two and a half years of litigation.
