Contact Information
Biography/Practice Areas
Mohamedu F. Jones, a Partner of Pannone Lopes Devereaux & O’Gara LLC, focuses exclusively on the firm’s distinguished Special Masterships practice. He is a veteran advocate and attorney, and has been involved in large class action lawsuits. He has particular experience monitoring or serving as plaintiffs’ counsel in matters of conditions of confinement, including mental health, medical, segregation and the civil rights of incarcerated persons from the East Coast to the West Coast. In addition, he founded an advocacy organization for immigration relief for Liberian citizens in the United States.
Attorney Jones’ unique skill set includes working in the private sector and for government agencies with a distinct interest in securing social justice and ensuring the fair treatment for all people, particularly for those less fortunate. As a member of the firm’s Special Masterships practice, he excels at working in close collaboration with all stakeholders, providing strategic advice, technical support, and the necessary oversight to achieve and further his clients’ goals.
For more than three decades, Attorney Jones served as a court-appointed monitor or plaintiffs’ counsel with compliance monitoring responsibilities in class action litigation involving conditions of confinement in California, Indiana, Louisiana, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Utah. These responsibilities included in-depth monitoring and reporting of compliance with national standards and court orders in the various cases, extensive supervision and collaboration with the firm’s attorneys in the Special Mastership practice, and with outside experts in the monitoring and reporting processes of these cases. Attorney Jones is also highly-skilled in the design, development, and implementation of targeted strategies and projects to assist defendants with achieving compliance, both overall and in focused areas.
Attorney Jones and the firm’s Special Masterships team are nationally recognized for their ability to conduct in-depth monitoring on-site and report back to federal courts. While in his role as Deputy Special Master, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Attorney Jones’ played a significant role in monitoring the provision of mental health care to more than 30,000 of the 170,000 incarcerated individuals. In June 2023, he was appointed as a Monitor in a case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona involving the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.
Attorney Jones earned his law degree from the University of Liberia, summa cum laude, and his Master of Law from Harvard Law School, where he was a Scholar of the Fulbright Program, an international educational exchange program sponsored by the United States government to increase mutual understanding among the people of the United States and other nations, and to provide opportunities to participate in the finding of solutions to shared international concerns. He is admitted to practice law in New York and Maryland.
Areas of Practice
- Special Masterships
Bar Admissions
- United States District Court of New York
- State of New York
- State of Maryland
- Republic of Liberia
Education/Professional Associations
Education
- Master of Laws (LLM) 1990
Harvard Law School - Bachelor of Laws (LLB) 1988
University of Liberia Law School - Bachelor of Arts (BA) 1975
University of Northern Iowa
Professional Associations and Memberships
- New York Bar Association, Member
- Maryland Bar Association, Member
Pro Bono Activities
- Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce
- East Greenwich Chamber of Commerce
- Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce
- Maryland Branch of The African Cultural Alliance of North America Inc. (ACANA)
Representative Matters
- Coleman v. Brown, et al, (Eastern District of California). Litigation challenging the delivery of mental health care in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (33 institutions).
Conducted compliance monitoring and assisted in managing a team of mental health and correctional experts who inspected and reported on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s levels of compliance with an agreed Mental Health Program Guide and specific orders and standards in the case.
Extensively participated in the reporting process and in the design, development, and implementation of effective strategies and to assist defendants with achieving compliance.
- Inmates of Rhode Island Training School for Youth v. Lingren, et al. (District of Rhode Island. Litigation challenging conditions of confinement and practices at the Rhode Island Juvenile Detention Center, covering medical and mental health care, juvenile programming, discipline, custodial practices, and facility infrastructure. Conducted compliance monitoring and reporting regarding:
Construction of new facilities to meet national standards.
Development and Implementation of a revised policy and procedures manual.
Full implementation of a detailed and effective administrative grievance procedure to handle residents’ complaints.
Achieve full accreditation by the American Correctional Association.
- Hamilton v. Morial (Eastern District of Louisiana). Class action litigation which challenged conditions and practices at the Orleans Parish Prison of New Orleans, Louisiana that housed state and federal pre-trial detainees, sentenced prisoners, and immigration detainees. Areas in issue in the litigation were conditions of confinement including medical care, women’s health care, and juvenile health care and custody.
- Ilick v. Miller (District of Nevada). Class action litigation which challenged conditions and practices at Ely State Prison, Nevada’s maximum-security prison. Plaintiffs were declared prevailing party on the issues of use of excessive force and mental health care.
- Anderson v. Orr, (Northern District of Indiana). Class action litigation challenging overall conditions and practices at one of Indiana’s three maximum security prisons. This matter was settled on terms favorable to plaintiffs.
- Henry v. Deland, (District of Utah). Class action litigation challenging statewide adequacy of medical and mental health care provided to prisoners in Utah state prison. Monitored compliance in post-judgment phase.
- Bates v. Lynn, (Middle District of Louisiana). Class action litigation to secure meaningful access to courts for condemned prisoners in the Louisiana State Prison system. On April 22, 1991, court entered a consent decree providing inmates with contact visits, training for legal assistants, and other legal access reforms.
- Dunn v. Voinovich, (District of Ohio). Statewide class action on behalf of over prisoners in Ohio state prisons challenging the denial of adequate mental health care. State agreed-to comprehensive settlement agreement. Monitored compliance in post-judgment phase.
Articles & Insights
- Mohamedu F. Jones, Formative Case Law and Litigation, in Oxford Textbook of Correctional Psychiatry 13 (Robert L. Trestman et al. eds., 2015).
- “S. Fails to Conform to International Human Rights Tenets,” 8 The National Prison Project ; Journal 5 (October 1993).
- Facilitator, National Action Meeting on HIV and Hepatitis in Prisons.
- Member, Panel on Hepatitis and HIV Epidemics in Prisons and Jails in the United States.
- Presentation of Paper, Human Rights Violation, Conference on the Prison-Industrial Complex, University of California at Berkeley.
- Presenter of Paper, Criminal Justice Conference, Duke University.
- Organized and Chaired National Conference on Challenging Super-Maximum-Security Prisons in the United States.
- Member, Steering Committee on Public Safety and Justice Campaign Opposed to the Privatization of American Prisons.
- Testified on Juvenile Incarceration before the Joint Committee on Finance, General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island, Providence, Rhode Island.
- Served as Project Associate, Liberian Law Project, Inc. editing and publication of the opinions of the Supreme Court of Liberia from 1979 – 1999 and January 2001 – Present
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