GEO Group’s $1 Detainee Pay Arguments Meet Dubious Appeals Court

Private prison operator GEO Group Inc. faced a skeptical federal appeals court in its bid to overturn $23.23 million jury verdicts over its immigrant detainee work program.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit took the company to task during oral argument Thursday after its attorney, Michael Kirk of Cooper & Kirk PLLC, invoked a 1978 appropriations law that he said suggests detainees shouldn’t be paid more than $1 per day for their work.

The company’s contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to operate the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Wash., “clearly ...