Scott County, Mississippi, authorities have held Octavious Burks in jail for ten months without formally charging him with a crime. Burks has requested an attorney but the county has yet to assign him a public defender.

This is the third time Scott County authorities have detained Burks, who was arrested last November for attempted armed robbery, for an extended period without formally charging him with a crime. In 2009 and 2012, Scott County authorities held Burks for about a year before releasing him. Burks was never formally charged with any crime in either instance.

Burks is not alone, according to attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Those are the allegations set forth in a class action lawsuit filed last week by the ACLU, the ACLU of Mississippi, and the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center.

The Scott County Detention Center has held people for as long as a year without appointing counsel and without indicting them in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments’ rights to counsel, to a speedy trial, and to a fair bail hearing, according to the complaint filed in federal court against the Scott County sheriff, district attorney, and several judges.

The State of Mississippi, as explained in the complaint, does not impose a limit on either the length of time a district attorney has to present a felony case to the grand jury for indictment, or on the length of time a felony defendant may be held in jail without a valid indictment.

That means the potential time a poor defendant detained on a felony charge may spend in jail prior to indictment is indefinite. Public defenders in Scott County are not assigned until a person has been indicted.

Felony indictments in Scott County are only issued three times a year, after a grand jury convenes to formally charge defendants with their crimes. One plaintiff in the ACLU’s suit, Joshua Bassett, has been in the Scott County Detention Center since January 16, 2014, after he was arrested “pursuant to a warrant issued the same day for grand larceny and possession of methamphetamine.” He has yet to be indicted or assigned an attorney.

“This is indefinite detention, pure and simple,” Brandon Buskey, staff attorney at the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project, said in a statement following the filing of the lawsuit.

The judges of the Scott County Justice Court increase the likelihood of indefinite detention of people like Burks by setting bail in arbitrary amounts, without individualized consideration of the bail factors required under state and federal law, including a defendant’s ability to pay, according to the allegations in the complaint.

Attorneys for the ACLU argue that felony defendants in Scott County are routinely detained prior to indictment simply because they are too poor to afford bail.

“For those waiting for indictment, the county has created its own Constitution-free zone,” Buskey said. “These prisoners’ cases are frozen, their lives outside the jail are disintegrating, and they haven’t even been charged with a crime. The county has tossed these people into a legal black hole.”

The practices of the district attorney’s office also contribute significantly to the incident of indefinite pre-indictment detention in Scott County, the lawsuit claims.

Specifically, the district attorney’s office does not regularly monitor the progress of law enforcement investigations, which leads to delay in preparing the cases for the grand jury. Instead, according to the complaint, the district attorney’s office has a general policy of not reviewing most felony cases until the investigating law enforcement office informs the district attorney that the case is ready to go to the grand jury.

This practice has devastating consequences for poor defendants because they have no attorney to represent them at their initial appearance, the complaint alleges. The initial appearance is the phase in the criminal proceedings in which a defendant argues either for release or for reasonable bail.

It is not just the initial appearance where a defendant needs an attorney.

Failing to assign public defenders until after indictment also means those defendants do not have an attorney to file a separate habeas action in civil court challenging alleged unconstitutional conditions of confinement such as their bail amount. Those defendants also have no attorney to protect their rights to a preliminary hearing, no advocate actively investigating the facts and law underlying the charges, preparing a defense, or negotiating a potential resolution with the state, according to the ACLU.

“We’re seeking to make Scott County’s justice system function for all its residents.” Buskey said.

Scott County, Mississippi, is approximately 50 miles east of Jackson, where the state’s last remaining abortion clinic remains after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Mississippi’s hospital admitting privileges law unconstitutional.

Attorneys for the state have asked the entire panel of judges to review that decision in light of an earlier decision from the Fifth Circuit upholding a similar Texas law.