Lawyers for six Alabama inmates argued during a Monday hearing that the prison system’s punishment of inmates for failing to go to work violates the newly updated state Constitution.

The inmates filed the lawsuit in May, arguing they want to work for an employer outside the prison system, but they do not want to be punished by the prison system “for not working if (they) cannot work or decline to do so, including for reasons such as illness or unsafe working conditions.”

If prisoners miss or refuse work, according to the inmates’ lawyers, the Alabama Department of Corrections can take away phone privileges and commissary access, revoke good time, or order someone to solitary confinement. The department can also dole out additional work inside prison walls without pay.

These prison punishments can also create a record of disciplinary infractions, making someone deemed safe enough for work release less likely to be paroled.

The inmates, who weren’t present at Monday’s hearing, are represented by lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights. There are five male inmates and one female inmate named in the lawsuit. All are Black.

“They want to work,” said senior staff attorney Jessica Vosburgh. “They just don’t want to be subjected to punishments if they don’t work.”

The lawsuit, filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court, is based on the change in the state Constitution, after voters in 2022 chose to update the document to remove racist language. The lawyers noted that Article 1, Section 32 of the new state Constitution now reads: “That no form of slavery shall exist in this state; and there shall not be any involuntary servitude.”

The suit challenges the state’s “brazen failure to heed the will of the people of this state, who voted in 2022 to ratify a new state constitution that bans slavery and involuntary servitude in all its forms, with no exceptions.”

Monday’s hearing was set to discuss the state’s motion to dismiss the case. The state case, filed in Montgomery County and handled by Circuit Judge James Anderson, is slightly different from a federal case, which includes similar allegations about the state’s work release program. In that case, filed in December, prisoners said they’ve been denied parole and forced to work jobs at fast food restaurants as part of a “labor-trafficking scheme” that generates $450 million a year for the state.

On Monday, lawyers cited some of the reasons inmates would refuse work in the lawsuit like health hazards, inadequate pay, or workplace harassment or abuse.

The case is “relatively simple” compared to other issues plaguing the Alabama Department of Corrections, said Vosburgh. The inmates aren’t seeking monetary damages; just an order barring the department from punishing them for not working.

Vosburgh said being fired from a job for not showing up is fair game and that the case is about additional punishments handed down from the Department of Corrections.

An attorney for the state told the judge that the issue comes down to good time, which most of the six plaintiffs aren’t eligible for. He said the sanctions come from the privilege of work release, which inmates aren’t forced to do. Inmates sign up for work release, he said.

“It’s just not believable that the people of Alabama intended to turn (the Alabama Department of Corrections) on its head,” Assistant Solicitor General Soren Geiger said, referencing the 2022 vote to change the Constitution.

He said the case is about getting all the benefits of work release or community-based programs without following the rules.

The six inmates are trying “to use this linguistic modernization (of the 2022 Constitution) to challenge the entire incentive structure of Alabama’s prison system,” the state’s motion to dismiss the case said.

“In other words, (the inmates) want a court order permitting them to abandon their posts on a day-by-day, or per-haps an hour-by-hour, basis no matter how legitimate the reason.”

The judge listened to about 20 minutes of arguments on the case before saying he wouldn’t issue a ruling immediately.

“I’m going to look at everything with fresh eyes now,” Anderson said from the bench.

Following the hearing, Vosburgh said she feels optimistic about the judge’s impending decision.

“I think he’ll rule in our favor.”