Coalition for Government Procurement v. Federal Prison Industries, Inc.

ECONOMUS, D.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which GILMAN, J., joined. GIBBONS, J., concurred in the judgment only.

OPINION

ECONOMUS, District Judge.

I. OVERVIEW

This appeal draws the court into the longstanding conflict between the government’s policy of employing federal inmates in the manufacture of goods and the challenges faced by the private industries compelled to compete with inmate-produced wares. Nearly seven decades ago, the United States Supreme Court addressed the “evil” posed by “the sale of convict-made goods in competition with the products of free labor,” and opined,…