Abolish Slavery National Network
Research library

Every authority, searchable.

88 records. Search by name, citation, or subject. Every record links to its official source. The Resources page keeps the same documents in reading order. Corrections: info@abolishslavery.us.

88 records
1787
The Constitution of the United States

1787, with the Bill of Rights and Amendments. Amendment XIII, 1865.

The whole instrument, so the exception is read in its place: Article I, Section 2 and the three-fifths clause; Article IV, Section 2 and the fugitive clause; Amendment XIII with the exception; Amendment XIV, Section 2. The exception did not preserve a metaphor. It preserved state power.

ConstitutionUnited StatesThe clause

1787
Northwest Ordinance, Article 6 (re-enacted by the First Congress)

1 Stat. 50, ch. 8 (August 7, 1789), re-enacting the Ordinance of July 13, 1787.

"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." The exception's words, seventy-eight years before the Thirteenth Amendment, with a fugitive proviso attached.

Statute or regulationUnited StatesThe clauseHistorical cases

1829
State v. Mann

13 N.C. (2 Dev.) 263 (1829)

A hirer who shot a slave who ran from a whipping was held not indictable for battery: "The power of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect." Ruffin, J. The plainest judicial statement of the powers of ownership as the slave regime understood them.

Treatment Historical. The regime it describes was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment.

CaseNorth CarolinaHistorical casesThe definition

1841
United States v. The Amistad

40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 518 (1841)

Africans seized and carried on the schooner Amistad were held free persons, not property, because their enslavement was unlawful under Spanish law. Story, J.

Treatment Historical.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical cases

1842
Prigg v. Pennsylvania

41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 539 (1842)

The federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 upheld and a Pennsylvania personal-liberty law struck: the power over fugitive rendition held exclusively federal. Story, J.

Treatment Historical; the Fugitive Slave Clause was rendered dead letter by the Thirteenth Amendment.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesThe clause

1845
State v. Post

20 N.J.L. 368 (N.J. Sup. Ct. 1845), affirmed 21 N.J.L. 699 (Err. & App. 1848).

The only New Jersey ruling on slavery as such. The 1844 Constitution declared all persons "by nature free and independent." The court held that declaration did not abolish slavery, which "existed by law in this state" when the constitution took effect.

CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey

1857
Dred Scott v. Sandford

60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857)

Persons of African descent held not citizens; Congress held unable to bar slavery in the territories. Taney, C.J.; McLean and Curtis, JJ., dissenting. The baseline the Thirteenth Amendment was written against.

Treatment Overridden by the Thirteenth (1865) and Fourteenth (1868) Amendments. History, not law.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesThe clause

1862
An Act for the Release of certain Persons held to Service or Labor in the District of Columbia

12 Stat. 376, ch. 54 (April 16, 1862).

Freed every person held in the District, let loyal owners petition commissioners for compensation, and provided that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for crime, whereof the party shall be duly convicted, shall hereafter exist in said District." The exception, three years before the amendment.

Statute or regulationUnited StatesThe clauseHistorical cases

1865
United States Constitution, Amendment XIII, Section 1

Ratified December 6, 1865.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

ConstitutionUnited StatesThe clause

1866
Treaty with the Cherokee, Article 9

14 Stat. 799 (July 19, 1866; proclaimed August 11, 1866).

"never hereafter shall either slavery or involuntary servitude exist in their nation otherwise than in the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, in accordance with laws applicable to all the members of said tribe alike." The treaty recites that the Cherokee abolished slavery by act of their national council in February 1863. One of five Reconstruction treaties of 1866 carrying the same formula.

Treaty or instrumentUnited StatesThe clauseHistorical cases

1867
In re Turner

24 F. Cas. 337 (C.C.D. Md. 1867) (No. 14,247)

Chief Justice Chase, sitting on circuit, discharged Elizabeth Turner, a Black child bound as an apprentice to her former master two days after Maryland's 1864 constitution abolished slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment "establishes freedom as the constitutional right of all persons," and the indenture, lacking the protections Maryland gave white apprentices, violated the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

Treatment The first reported federal decision enforcing the Thirteenth Amendment against a post-emancipation labor arrangement. Current in principle.

CaseMarylandHistorical casesInvoluntary servitude

1867
An Act to abolish and forever prohibit the System of Peonage in the Territory of New Mexico and other Parts of the United States

14 Stat. 546, ch. 187 (March 2, 1867).

Two years after the Thirteenth Amendment, Congress declared peonage unlawful by statute and made holding a person in peonage a crime. The amendment alone had not ended it.

Statute or regulationUnited StatesPeonageHistorical cases

1871
Ruffin v. Commonwealth

62 Va. (21 Gratt.) 790 (1871)

A leased-out convict tried in Richmond for killing a guard; the court, deciding a venue question, called the convict "the slave of the State" and "civiliter mortuus." Reasoning, not holding; the Thirteenth Amendment is not mentioned.

Treatment Its premise of total forfeiture was abandoned in Coffin v. Reichard (1944), Cooper v. Pate (1964), and Wolff v. McDonnell (1974).

CaseVirginiaHistorical casesCustody

1873
The Slaughter-House Cases

83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873)

The Court's first construction of the Reconstruction Amendments. It read the Thirteenth as abolishing slavery in every form while confining the Fourteenth's privileges-or-immunities clause narrowly. Miller, J.; four dissents.

Treatment Current on its Thirteenth Amendment reading; its Fourteenth Amendment reading is heavily criticized but not overruled.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesThe clause

1883
The Civil Rights Cases

109 U.S. 3 (1883)

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 struck. Congress may legislate against "all badges and incidents of slavery" under the Thirteenth Amendment, but refusal of public accommodation was held not to be one. Bradley, J.; Harlan, J., dissenting.

Treatment The badges-and-incidents power was reaffirmed and widened in Jones v. Mayer (1968). The accommodation holding is superseded by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesBadges and incidents

1888
"I Denounce the So-Called Emancipation as a Stupendous Fraud"

Frederick Douglass, 1888.

Twenty-three years after the Amendment. The first reading of the exception by the man who saw it coming.

Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research

1893
The Convict Lease System

Ida B. Wells, 1893, in The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition.

The primary account of the lease, written while it ran.

ArticleUnited StatesReports and research

1896
Plessy v. Ferguson

163 U.S. 537 (1896)

Racial segregation on railroads upheld; the Thirteenth Amendment argument rejected as reaching only slavery and its incidents. Brown, J.; Harlan, J., dissenting alone.

Treatment Overruled as to segregation by Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

CaseUnited StatesHistorical cases

1897
Robertson v. Baldwin

165 U.S. 275 (1897)

Deserting seamen compelled to return to their ship: held not involuntary servitude, the Court reading the Amendment against historical exceptions. Brown, J.; Harlan, J., dissenting.

Treatment Still cited for the proposition that the Amendment carries unstated exceptions; much criticized.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesInvoluntary servitude

1901
Downes v. Bidwell

182 U.S. 244 (1901)

The first of the Insular Cases: Puerto Rico held to belong to, but not be part of, the United States, so that the Constitution does not apply there of its own force in full. No majority opinion; Brown, J., announcing the judgment.

Treatment Still the governing frame for the territories; heavily criticized.

CasePuerto RicoTerritoriesHistorical cases

1905
Clyatt v. United States

197 U.S. 207 (1905)

The federal peonage statute upheld as an exercise of Thirteenth Amendment power against private persons; the conviction reversed for want of proof that the men had been returned to a condition of peonage. Brewer, J.

Treatment Current.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesPeonage

1911
Bailey v. Alabama

219 U.S. 219 (1911)

An Alabama statute making failure to perform a labor contract presumptive evidence of fraud struck as peonage: compulsory labor enforced by criminal law is involuntary servitude. Hughes, J.; Holmes, J., dissenting.

Treatment Current.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesPeonage

1914
United States v. Reynolds

235 U.S. 133 (1914)

Alabama's criminal-surety system, under which a convicted person worked off a fine for a private surety under threat of re-prosecution, struck as peonage. Day, J.

Treatment Current.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesPeonage

1916
Butler v. Perry

240 U.S. 328 (1916)

Compulsory work on public roads upheld as a civic duty of long standing, not involuntary servitude. McReynolds, J.

Treatment Still cited for the civic-duty exception.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesInvoluntary servitude

1922
Balzac v. Porto Rico

258 U.S. 298 (1922)

The right to jury trial held not to extend to Puerto Rico even after the Jones Act of 1917 conferred citizenship. Taft, C.J.

Treatment Current.

CasePuerto RicoTerritoriesHistorical cases

1926
1926 Slavery Convention, Article 1(1)

League of Nations, Geneva, September 25, 1926. United States adherence deposited March 21, 1929.

The definition: "the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised." The first cite, always.

Treaty or instrumentUnited StatesThe definition

1930
ILO Convention No. 29, Forced Labour, Article 2(2)(c)

International Labour Organization, 1930. Not ratified by the United States.

The forced-labour definition carries its own exception for work exacted after a conviction. Why "forced labor" is the weaker frame: the international definition of forced labour excludes prison work; the definition of slavery does not.

Treaty or instrumentUnited StatesThe definition

1942
Taylor v. Georgia

315 U.S. 25 (1942)

A Georgia labor-contract statute struck under Bailey; a State may not use criminal law to compel labor in payment of a debt. Byrnes, J.

Treatment Current.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesPeonage

1944
Pollock v. Williams

322 U.S. 4 (1944)

A Florida labor-contract statute struck; the opinion states the Amendment's purpose as making labor free by barring the compulsion of service under threat of criminal punishment. Jackson, J.

Treatment Current.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesPeonage

1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 4 and 15

United Nations General Assembly, December 10, 1948.

Article 4: "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." Article 15: everyone has the right to a nationality, and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of it. The declaration the treaties carry into law.

Treaty or instrumentInternationalThe definition

1950
Organic Act of Guam, 48 U.S.C. § 1421b(i)

Act of Congress, 1950.

The full formula, in a federal statute only Congress can amend.

ConstitutionGuamThe clause

1954
Revised Organic Act of the Virgin Islands, 48 U.S.C. § 1561

Act of Congress, 1954.

"Slavery shall not exist in the Virgin Islands. Involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted by a court of law, shall not exist in the Virgin Islands."

ConstitutionU.S. Virgin IslandsThe clause

1956
1956 Supplementary Convention, Article 7(a)

Geneva, September 7, 1956. United States accession deposited December 6, 1967. Article 9: no reservations permitted.

Reaffirms the 1926 definition by direct reference. The second cite.

Treaty or instrumentUnited StatesThe definition

1964
Cooper v. Pate

378 U.S. 546 (1964)

A state prisoner may sue under the Civil Rights Act for religious discrimination in prison. Per curiam. The decision that opened the federal courts to prisoners' claims.

Treatment Current.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesCustody

1967
Revised Constitution of American Samoa, Article I, Section 10

1967.

The full formula, in a constitution that operates under federal oversight.

ConstitutionAmerican SamoaThe clause

1968
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.

392 U.S. 409 (1968)

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 bars private racial discrimination in the sale of property, and Congress may determine what the badges and incidents of slavery are and legislate against them. Stewart, J.

Treatment Current.

CaseUnited StatesBadges and incidents

1974
Wolff v. McDonnell

418 U.S. 539 (1974)

Due process applies to prison disciplinary proceedings that take good time; "there is no iron curtain drawn between the Constitution and the prisons of this country." White, J.

Treatment Current.

CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesCustody

1982
N.J.S.A. 2A:4A-48, Effect of disposition

N.J.S.A. 2A:4A-48, L.1982, c. 77, s. 29.

"No disposition under this act shall operate to impose any of the civil disabilities ordinarily imposed by virtue of a criminal conviction, nor shall a juvenile be deemed a criminal by reason of such disposition." A child adjudicated delinquent in New Jersey has not been convicted. The exception's own condition is not met.

Statute or regulationNew JerseyChildrenNew Jersey

1988
United States v. Kozminski

487 U.S. 931 (1988).

"Involuntary servitude" limited to compulsion by physical or legal coercion. Economic and psychological pressure do not count. The wall every undefined "involuntary servitude" clause is read through.

CaseUnited StatesThe rulings

1988
Committee of U.S. Citizens Living in Nicaragua v. Reagan

859 F.2d 929 (D.C. Cir. 1988).

When the political branches violate a peremptory norm, "the domestic legal consequences are unclear." And: the prohibitions of murder and slavery "may well restrain our government in the same way that the Constitution restrains it." The State's best answer to the jus cogens argument, and the argument's own hedge, in one opinion.

CaseUnited StatesInternational law and the vote

1992
Vanskike v. Peters

974 F.2d 806 (7th Cir. 1992).

A prisoner doing required work "is actually engaged in involuntary servitude, not employment," and the State's control comes "from incarceration itself." The court says it in the State's favor and proves the point: the custody is the source of the power.

CaseUnited StatesThe rulings

1997
Lorusso v. Pinchak

305 N.J. Super. 117 (App. Div. 1997).

The published state rule: no liberty interest in a job, wages, or credits. The opinion never mentions the Thirteenth Amendment. That silence is the record.

CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey

1999
Tourscher v. McCullough

184 F.3d 236 (3d Cir. 1999). The circuit that governs New Jersey.

Compelled cafeteria work "did not violate the Thirteenth Amendment" while the plaintiff was duly convicted. The day his conviction was vacated he became a detainee the State could compel at most to housekeeping. Conviction is the switch.

CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey

2001
Allen v. Fauver

167 N.J. 69 (2001).

The State is not an "employer" of its own corrections officers under the wage law, and consent to suit needs "clear and unambiguous legislative expression." Why the waiver goes in the constitution.

CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey

2002
Prosecutor v. Kunarac, Kovac and Vukovic

IT-96-23 and IT-96-23/1-A (ICTY App. Ch., June 12, 2002)

Enslavement as a crime against humanity: the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership, with the indicia that show it. Trial Chamber judgement of February 22, 2001 affirmed.

Treatment Current. The court-validated indicia the audits measure.

CaseInternationalThe definitionCustody

2004
United States v. Bradley

390 F.3d 145 (1st Cir. 2004).

Labor obtained by prohibited means "is forced, even if he is paid or compensated for the work." Pay is not a defense.

CaseUnited StatesThe rulings

2005
Roper v. Simmons

543 U.S. 551 (2005).

The death penalty may not be imposed for a crime committed under the age of 18. "Three general differences between juveniles under 18 and adults demonstrate that juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders." At 569. The first of the three cases that treat youth as constitutionally distinct.

CaseUnited StatesChildren

2008
The Slavery Conventions: The Travaux Préparatoires of the 1926 League of Nations Convention and the 1956 United Nations Convention

Jean Allain. Brill, Leiden, 2008.

The drafting record of the definition the network works from: every draft, debate, and vote behind Article 1(1) of 1926 and the 1953 Protocol and 1956 Convention that carried it forward. Where the treaty is the authority, this is the record of how its words were chosen.

Treaty or instrumentInternationalThe definition

2008
Medellín v. Texas

552 U.S. 491 (2008).

A treaty that is not self-executing is not domestic law until Congress implements it. The 1926 definition carries definitional and interpretive weight in a United States court. It is not a cause of action. The amendment supplies the cause of action.

CaseUnited StatesInternational law and the vote

2010
Graham v. Florida

560 U.S. 48 (2010).

Life without parole may not be imposed on a child for a crime in which no one was killed. "Because juveniles have lessened culpability they are less deserving of the most severe punishments." At 68. The State must give "some meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation." At 75.

CaseUnited StatesChildren

2012
Bellagio-Harvard Guidelines on the Legal Parameters of Slavery (2012)

Research Network on the Legal Parameters of Slavery.

Interpretive gloss on the 1926 definition: possession as the foundation, then the further powers, substance over form, security of holding. Never cited alone.

Treaty or instrumentUnited StatesThe definition

2012
Miller v. Alabama

567 U.S. 460 (2012).

Mandatory life without parole may not be imposed on a child. "Roper and Graham establish that children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing." At 471. Both petitioners were 14 and had been tried as adults.

CaseUnited StatesChildren

2012
Brief of Jeffrey Fagan and 46 other scholars as amici curiae, Miller v. Alabama

Nos. 10-9646 and 10-9647 (U.S., filed January 17, 2012).

Forty-seven criminologists, sociologists, and legal scholars, including John DiIulio, Jr., who coined the term: "the juvenile superpredator was a myth and the predictions of future youth violence were baseless." The brief records that between 1992 and 1999 forty-nine states and the District of Columbia passed laws making it easier to try children as adults. The forecast failed. The transfer laws it produced remain.

Report or databaseUnited StatesChildrenReports and research

2014
Shabazz v. New Jersey Commissioner of Corrections

No. 3:13-cv-04968 (D.N.J. May 19, 2014). Unpublished.

"There is no federally protected right of a state prisoner not to work while imprisoned after conviction." Dismissed with prejudice.

CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey

2015
Planker v. Christie

No. 3:13-cv-04464 (D.N.J. Jan. 21, 2015). Unpublished.

"A sentenced inmate may reasonably expect to be required to work without compensation as a result of his conviction." Wage and forced-labor claims dismissed with prejudice.

CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey

2015
Wofford v. Lanigan

No. 2:14-cv-05723 (D.N.J. Dec. 28, 2015). Unpublished.

Two men served thirty-year mandatory minimums, earned about 15,505 work and commutation credits they could never use, and asked to be paid for them on release. The court read the statute as "permissive rather than mandatory" and held the State owed them nothing. Dismissed with prejudice.

CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey

2015
Brown v. State

442 N.J. Super. 406 (App. Div. 2015).

The State cannot be sued for damages under its own Civil Rights Act. The remedy has to be constitutional.

CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey

2015
N.J.S.A. 2A:4A-26.1, Waiver of juvenile jurisdiction

N.J.S.A. 2A:4A-26.1, L.2015, c. 89, as amended through 2025.

The transfer statute. On a prosecutor's motion, a child of 15 or older charged with a listed offense is moved to adult court, and "the case shall proceed as if it originated in that court and shall be subject to the sentencing provisions available to that court." On conviction the child holds the adult status. This is the statute the network targets.

Statute or regulationNew JerseyChildrenNew Jersey

2016
Loyal v. Lanigan

No. 3:15-cv-05769 (D.N.J. Aug. 30, 2016).

Same facts, same result. Carries the Department's own letter: it "elects to award both credit and money" though it "has the option of awarding just one as described in statute."

CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey

2018
Menocal v. GEO Group, Inc.

882 F.3d 905 (10th Cir. 2018).

Class certification affirmed for people held at GEO's Aurora facility under the forced labor statute and Colorado unjust enrichment law. The court records that refusal to clean drew sanctions up to seventy-two hours in solitary confinement, and that the work program paid one dollar a day.

CaseColoradoThe rulingsHeld without conviction

2020
The Prison Industry 2020 and the Prison Industry Corporate Database

Worth Rises.

The companies, the contracts, and the money.

Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research

2020
Barrientos v. CoreCivic, Inc.

951 F.3d 1269 (11th Cir. 2020).

The federal forced labor statute reaches for-profit contractors operating work programs in immigration detention. People held at Stewart Detention Center alleged coercion by threat of criminal prosecution, solitary confinement, and the withholding of necessities, at one to four dollars a day.

CaseGeorgiaThe rulingsHeld without conviction

2021
Ndambi v. CoreCivic, Inc.

990 F.3d 369 (4th Cir. 2021).

Adverse. People held for immigration proceedings in New Mexico are not "employees" under the federal wage law; the court holds that "the civil nature of appellants' detainment is not dispositive" and leaves the question to Congress.

CaseMarylandThe rulingsHeld without conviction

2021
Alabama Convict Labor Revenue and Demographics, 1896 to 1929

Alabama Department of Archives and History, compiled for the Legislative Services Agency, October 2021.

The State's own figures from the Treasurer's annual reports. Peak year 1918: the Convict Department transferred $2,115,019 to the treasury, 40.4 percent of the general fund and 25 percent of all funds. Between 61 and 92 percent of lease profit, 1911 to 1926, came from men in mines.

Report or databaseAlabamaReports and researchHistorical cases

2022
The slavery prohibition as a peremptory norm

International Law Commission, Draft Conclusions on Peremptory Norms of General International Law (jus cogens), 2022, Annex.

The prohibition of slavery is on the Commission's list of norms from which no derogation is permitted. No government and no electorate can vote slavery lawful.

Treaty or instrumentInternationalThe definition

2022
Mortis v. Polis

Denver District Court, Case No. 2022CV30421, February 13, 2026 (Wallace, J.). 61 pages.

Colorado Department of Corrections' coercive labor practices held unconstitutional under the Colorado Constitution, Article II, Section 26, as amended by the voters in 2018. The first ruling to give a removal operational force. Decided as involuntary servitude; the court was never asked to say what slavery means.

CaseColoradoThe rulings

2022
Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers

American Civil Liberties Union and the University of Chicago Law School Global Human Rights Clinic, 2022. 149 pages.

The national survey of prison labor: who works, at what pay, under what compulsion, and for whose benefit. The most cited factual record in the field.

Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research

2022
Colorado Senate Bill 22-050, Work Opportunities for Persons Imprisoned by the Department of Corrections

2022 Colo. Sess. Laws ch. 51.

Four years after Amendment A, the legislature struck the words "shall be put to and kept at" from the inmate work statute and replaced them with "shall participate in," and struck "profit-oriented" from Correctional Industries' mandate. The statute the constitutional text left standing, changed by ordinary legislation.

Statute or regulationColoradoThe rulingsEnforcement

2022
Owino v. CoreCivic, Inc.

60 F.4th 437 (9th Cir. 2022), amended opinion.

Three classes certified against CoreCivic. The court describes the plaintiffs as "detained solely due to their immigration status and neither charged with, nor convicted of, any crime." Rehearing denied over a dissent.

CaseCaliforniaThe rulingsHeld without conviction

2023
Burrell v. Staff

60 F.4th 25 (3d Cir. 2023).

Civil contemnors made to work at a recycling center for five dollars a day. The court, quoting Vanskike on the Amendment's "specific exclusion of prisoner labor," wrote of the unconvicted plaintiffs: "no one can say that not convicted plaintiffs' work belongs to the County." The convicted person's labor does. That is the ownership power, named by the circuit.

CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey

2023
Nwauzor v. The GEO Group, Inc. (Washington Supreme Court)

2 Wash. 3d 505, 540 P.3d 93 (Wash. 2023).

Answering the Ninth Circuit's certified question: detained workers at a private detention facility are "employees" under the state Minimum Wage Act. The court records that immigration detainees "have not been found to have committed any crime." Unanimous.

CaseWashingtonThe rulingsHeld without conviction

2024
Stanley v. Ivey

Alabama Court of Civil Appeals, CL-2024-0710, December 19, 2025.

Alabama removed its exception in 2022. The State pleaded sovereign immunity against its own amendment, and the appeal lost because the penalties alleged were held not to be involuntary servitude. Why the remedy and the immunity waiver go in the text.

CaseAlabamaThe rulings

2024
Ruelas v. County of Alameda

15 Cal. 5th 968 (2024).

People never convicted worked unpaid for a private contractor in a county jail, sued for minimum wage, and lost unanimously because a statute still stood. What keeps wage law out of jails is statutes, not the exception. A statute is not an amendment.

CaseCaliforniaThe rulingsHeld without conviction

2024
Administrative Enslavement

Adam Davidson, 124 Columbia Law Review 633 (2024).

The regime in one phrase. A century of federal courts holding that a conviction alone triggers the exception, plus fifty-one legislatures handing the decision to prison administrators: no notice that the punishment will be imposed, no reason given, no judge or jury deciding. The article surveys every state's implementation of the exception.

ArticleUnited StatesReports and research

2024
A Cost-Benefit Analysis: The Impact of Ending Slavery and Involuntary Servitude

2024.

What removal costs and what it returns, in the states' own figures.

Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research

2025
Nwauzor v. The GEO Group, Inc.

127 F.4th 750 (9th Cir. 2025).

Washington's minimum wage law applies to the people GEO put to work at its Tacoma detention center. The court: "They are civil detainees. They are not in criminal proceedings." Rehearing denied August 13, 2025 over two dissents. A petition for review is pending in the Supreme Court, No. 25-828; the United States filed a brief on September 15, 2026 urging the Court to take the case.

CaseWashingtonThe rulingsHeld without conviction

2025
Minnesota H.F. 3335, 94th Legislature, as introduced

H.F. 3335 (Minn. 2025), companion S.F. 3536.

Proposes to strike "otherwise than as punishment for a crime of which the party has been convicted" from Article I, Section 2 and to put the question to the voters: "Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to prohibit slavery or involuntary servitude as criminal punishment for a crime?" Introduced May 17, 2025, sixteen authors, referred to Public Safety Finance and Policy.

Statute or regulationMinnesotaThe clause

2026
SCR 16 and SR 91

New Jersey Legislature, 2026 session.

The legislative companions to the plea disclosure petition filed April 17, 2026.

Statute or regulationNew JerseyNew Jersey

2026
GEO Group, Inc. v. Menocal

607 U.S. ___ (2026), No. 24-758, decided February 25, 2026.

A contractor's claim that the government "authorized and directed" its conduct is a defense to be tried, not an immunity from suit. GEO could not stop the Colorado detainees' forced labor and unjust enrichment class action before trial. Kagan, J., for the Court; no dissent.

CaseUnited StatesThe rulingsHeld without conviction

2026
Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae, GEO Group v. Nwauzor

No. 25-828 (U.S., filed September 15, 2026).

The Solicitor General urges the Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit's minimum wage ruling. A brief, not a decision.

Report or databaseUnited StatesHeld without conviction

2026
H.J. Res. 216, the Abolition Amendment, as introduced

H.J. Res. 216, 119th Cong. (introduced September 15, 2026).

Proposes an amendment to the Constitution to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime. Introduced by Rep. Nikema Williams with 54 original cosponsors named on the printed resolution. Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Statute or regulationUnited StatesThe clause

2026
S.J. Res. 214, the Abolition Amendment, as introduced

S.J. Res. 214, 119th Cong. (introduced September 15, 2026).

The Senate companion. Introduced by Sen. Jeff Merkley with Sen. Cory Booker and eleven other Senators. Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Statute or regulationUnited StatesThe clause

N.J.S.A. 30:4-92

New Jersey Statutes, Title 30.

The Commissioner sets prison pay. Compensation "may be in the form of cash or remission of time from sentence or both." One day off a sentence for every five days worked. When freedom is the wage, refusing is not free.

Statute or regulationNew JerseyNew Jersey

N.J.A.C. 10A:4-4.1 and 10A:4-5.1

New Jersey Administrative Code, Department of Corrections.

Prohibited act .254, refusing to work, and its sanctions: up to 120 days in restrictive housing and 180 days of lost commutation time. The rule that punishes refusal.

Statute or regulationNew JerseyNew Jersey

Convicted: How Corporations Exploit the Thirteenth Amendment

Corporate Accountability Lab.

The private beneficiaries of the exception, named.

ConstitutionUnited StatesReports and research

The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons

The Sentencing Project.

State by state incarceration rates by race and ethnicity. The State's own counts, which the audits enter as the State's admission against itself.

Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research

Citing Slavery Project

Database.

Every case in which an American court cited a slave case as precedent, and the courts still doing it.

Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research

Abolition Labor: The Fight to End Prison Slavery

Andrew Ross, Tommaso Bardelli, and Aiyuba Thomas. OR Books.

The book on the movement, from inside it.

BookUnited StatesReports and research

You do not amend slavery. You abolish it.

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