This story first aired during the May 1, 2026, broadcast of Louisiana Considered. You can listen to the full episode here.
A decision is expected any day in a bench trial challenging forced labor on the farm line at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, better known as Angola.
The lawsuit was filed three years ago by both current and former incarcerated men, who argue the work constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and also violates protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act. WWNO/WRKF Coastal Desk reporter Michael McEwen spoke with Samantha Pourciau, a senior staff attorney at the Promise of Justice Initiative, the organization representing the plaintiffs in federal court.
The following conversation has been edited for clarity.
MICHAEL MCEWEN, REPORTER:
I think it's probably best to start at the beginning of this lawsuit, stretching back a few years now. A group of both currently and formerly incarcerated men sued to end the practice of compulsory labor on the so-called ‘Farm Line’. What are their specific concerns with that forced labor, and what claim are they making under the law?
SAMANTHA POURCIAU: The plaintiffs in this case are VOTE — a nonprofit organization based in New Orleans that stands for Voice of the Experienced. It is comprised of currently and formerly incarcerated people advocating for the rights of that population. And there are seven currently incarcerated men at Angola who are named plaintiffs in this lawsuit and have been approved to represent a class of all people at Angola.
And so the lawsuit seeks to end the degrading practice of forcing men to labor in former plantation fields under conditions that are intended to simulate chattel slavery, known as the farm line. The case has two legal claims: one is under the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and then a sub-claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act to specifically focus on individuals who are heat-sensitive and are put in physically dangerous conditions by being forced to labor in the high heat of Louisiana summers.
Even for healthy individuals, there are certain protective measures that need to be taken into consideration to ensure people's physical safety. The farm line is the first job that individuals are assigned, and for the most part, when they enter Angola, designed intentionally to break them and make them realize they don't have autonomy over their bodies. It is used as a threat for the rest of their time in prison. If they get a disciplinary write-up, they are then subject to be placed back on the farm line, and they lose whatever other job they had been given in the interim.
MCEWEN: For those who might not be familiar, what's the history of the actual land that Angola sits upon today? It takes its name, I understand, from a former sprawling slave plantation, and the farm line in specific – what function does that have at the prison today?
POURCIAU: It was actually more than one plantation that combined today's 18,000 acres of multiple plantations that make up the current-day Louisiana State Penitentiary. Once slavery was abolished, it changed hands and became a site of convict leasing, which was the newly legalized form of slavery. But eventually it went back into the hands of the state and became the modern-day version of slavery of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, our modern system of mass incarceration. And so the fields that the men at Angola are forced to labor on are the site of multiple plantations, and that is why, colloquially, it's referred to as Angola — the history suggests that a former slave owner thought that the best slaves came from Angola, and that's why he called it Angola.
The state's contention is that the Farm Line operates to provide fresh produce to feed the population at Angola. The Farm Line does not operate as a for-profit entity where they're selling what is harvested from the farm line. There is a separate agricultural process at Angola that is operated by the private arm of DOC, known as Prison Enterprises, that uses modern-day machinery to grow commodity crops that are sold on the open market. But that is distinct from the farm line and the litigation.
We don't dispute that some of the vegetables from the farm line are going into the kitchens; what we take issue with is the manner in which the farm line is operated, which is intentionally cruel and unusual, and there could be changes made to how the farm line operates, if that is truly the goal, that actually make it more efficient.
At trial, we called an expert witness who is a local farming expert who testified about the extreme inefficiencies she saw in how the farm line was operated and how no other Louisiana farm operates the way the farm line at Angola does. And it was clear to her that it wasn't intended to be a productive farming operation.
MCEWEN: There were at least temporary protections put in place by the judge who's presiding over the case. How have the men who are being forced to work on the line today responded to them?
POURCIAU: So yes, we have been able to win three preliminary injunctions over the summers, in this case, over the past two summers, and some of the changes that were made that are for the better from those orders have been increased breaks and increased access to shade.
Over the course of the past two summers, those things have definitely made it more physically safe from heat-related harms, but they haven't completely abated them. And while shade can help, in some instances, the science is clear that at a certain point, at which it gets to a certain heat index, air conditioning is really the only thing that can cool people's bodies to a safe place, and so we are still seeking breaks that have cooling and air conditioning.
We also, throughout the litigation, have vastly expanded the number of people that the prison identifies as being heat sensitive because of the medical conditions or medications that they're prescribed that impair their ability to thermoregulate, which is the technical word for just when their bodies can't keep at a safe temperature as easily.
So the number of people that the state has designated as heat sensitive has increased because of these preliminary injunctions, but they're still not encompassing all of the population that we believe should get that special designation.
MCEWEN: A key step in this legal process, leading up to the trial, was the granting of class action status to this lawsuit. Why was that particularly important from your point of view and the plaintiff's point of view?
POURCIAU: The judge granted class action status in December, 2025, right before the trial in February, and that was a huge step in the case because it meant that officially every single person at Angola who is on the farm line, or is subject to being placed on the farm line, was covered by the lawsuit. And so it ensured that any remedy one is going to apply is prison-wide.
MCEWEN: Let's move now to the trial that took place just a few months ago in February. I'm wondering, in a case like this, where a group of plaintiffs is making these claims against what is ultimately the Louisiana State government, how does the trial work in itself?
POURCIAU: This trial proceeded as a bench trial before Judge Jackson in the Middle District of Louisiana. It's very common for these kinds of cases to be bench trials because of how complex they are, and so it is easier procedurally for a judge to oversee the case as opposed to a jury.
We were able to present our case in chief as the plaintiffs in the first week, between February 3rd and 5th, and going over a bit into the second week. We presented 18 witnesses at trial — we called five currently incarcerated people to testify directly about their experiences on the farm line, and we called a number of prison officials to testify about how the farm line operates and how they perceive the farm line. And we called for expert witnesses to opine on various aspects of the legal claims. We had an emergency room medical doctor to testify about the heat-related harms, and then we had a sociologist, a historian, and a farmer to talk about the dignitary-related harms and opine on how the farm line is a degrading and dehumanizing practice in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
MCEWEN: How likely does it seem that the judge will rule in favor of that versus maybe just codifying some permanent protections into state law?
POURCIAU: The relief we're seeking is to end the farm line as it currently operates, and so we have proposed some remedies of how we think the court could rule to comply with the Constitution.
One of our class members testified that he felt like it's the way the prison welcomes you to the plantation and makes you realize that you are on a plantation. And so we have asked the court to order that it no longer be the first job assignment. We've asked the court to order that it no longer be a disciplinary job assignment that facilitates the farm line as existing within the landscape of the prison as the bottom of the hierarchy, so if it can no longer be used as a punishment job, then it would alleviate the dignitary harm that we proved at trial is taking place.
And one final specific remedy related to the dignitary harm that we've sought is for it to be turned into more of a vocational training program where men are taught how to do all of the process, from growing to harvesting, and those modern-day agricultural practices that we use in the state generally are used on the farm line, and it is an actual farming operation. That would alleviate the dignitary harm of it being a punitive tool of social control as it currently exists.
