So far, there is no indication Nessel is ready to seek a deal. Her office’s tough stance puzzles some legal experts, especially given the state’s dismal history defending allegations of prison rape.

In 1996, the state took a similar approach against accusations of sexual assault made by women inmates. The state fought the claims for over a decade, only to eventually pay the women more than $100 million in damages.

Nessel declined Bridge’s request for an interview. But in a statement, she defended her office’s approach to the juvenile claims.

A prison sentence, she said, “does not and should not include subjugation to physical or sexual assault, either by corrections officers or other inmates.”

But she added: “Many of the allegations only surfaced after litigation ensued and there is no corroborating evidence that the alleged assault occurred—no medical evidence, testimony by other inmates or staff who witnessed the assaults, and in several cases, not even an identification of the perpetrator.

“To assume the accusations made by the plaintiffs are truthful, often without any supporting evidence, or that the state should pay hundreds of millions of dollars for acts that would never result in settlements or judgments of that kind for law-abiding citizens outside a correctional facility, is simply unreasonable and unfair to Michigan’s taxpayers.”

Ann Arbor attorney Deborah LaBelle, the lead attorney in both the juvenile case and the previous litigation involving the women, said the state is repeating history at its peril.

“Now they head to trial, the same way they went to trial in a case involving widespread abuse of women prisoners by prison staff ‒ saying they just don't believe them because they are or were prisoners,” LaBelle said.

“The jury rejected that defense then and we believe it will reject it again and hear and recognize the harm suffered by these young people at the hands of the State.”

LaBelle disputed that she lacks corroborating evidence in the class-action suit. She said plaintiffs are prepared to call two dozen inmate witnesses at trial who saw or heard assaults, or were assaulted themselves.

“Witnesses heard screams and saw assaults,” she said.

LaBelle also argues that any lack of additional evidence is the fault of corrections officials for not installing cameras in unsupervised areas and failing to investigate claims of assault they knew about. Multiple juvenile prisoners say prison officers discouraged them from reporting attacks.

A voice for abuse victims

In the meantime, Nessel’s stance in the case could be viewed at odds with her filings in other cases involving children, particularly alleged victims of sexual abuse.

In May, Nessel authorized sexual misconduct charges against five priests who are serving or have served in three Michigan dioceses, the early results of her investigation into priest sexual abuse. The alleged victims in the cases included four boys and one girl, their ages ranging from 5 to 26.

“This is about taking on large-scale institutions that turn a blind eye to victims and making certain we hold all of them accountable,” Nessel said at the time.

When a sixth priest was later charged with child rape, Nessel said that victims in the case know her office “will listen to them, believe in them and investigate their allegations. They deserve nothing less than our very best.”

In July, Nessel joined 20 other state attorneys general in asking a federal court to order the U.S. government to safeguard children in immigration detention centers, including by providing necessities such as clean water and soap.

Given the sizable settlements awarded the women prisoners a decade ago, University of Michigan law professor Margo Schlanger said it would be a “pretty significant gamble” for the state to bring the juvenile lawsuit before a jury.

“The damages could range from a dollar all the way up to millions and millions of dollars,” said Schlanger, an expert on civil rights litigation and criminal detention. She declined to put a cap on what the upper damage range could be.

“If people have been raped and really been significantly traumatized, it could lead to very large awards.”

Schlanger said that prospect puts Nessel in a delicate position as the state’s top legal officer.

“The attorney general is the state’s lawyer. The attorney general has to defend the state’s interest.”

But as attorney general, “in the interest of justice, [she] should be settling cases in which she believes the state did something wrong.

“Both things are true.”

In fact, Nessel has staked out a position against the state’s legal position since taking office. In June, she broke ranks with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and sided with Detroit schoolchildren in their lawsuit against the state alleging that the poor quality of their public education denied them the right to literacy.

“There are moments in our state’s and, indeed, our nation’s history when silence in the face of abhorrent circumstances is not an option,” she said in a statement at the time. “Today is one such moment.”

Inmates: The abuse was nonstop

The juvenile prison suit involves claims by current and former inmates aged 14 to 17 who said they suffered repeated sexual assault under a state policy that, until August 2013, allowed juvenile inmates to be placed in prison cells with adults.

There are now more than 500 current or former prisoners certified for the suit.

They say prison officers ignored or laughed off complaints of rape and sexual assault by adult inmates. In some cases, officers themselves assaulted juveniles, they said. The abuse was constant: in prison cells, showers, closets, bathrooms and hallways.

The alleged attacks took place between 2009 and 2013, years after the state acknowledged that juvenile inmates were “five times more likely” to be sexually assaulted in an adult prison. They also followed passage of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003, based on congressional findings of the high risk of sexual abuse of youth in adult prisons.

Between 2004 and 2013, Michigan inmates filed more than 3,500 sexual abuse-related complaints, according to the MDOC. The state substantiated 6 percent of the claims.

Plaintiffs in the suit say they were hesitant to file complaints because they didn’t think they would be taken seriously or they feared retaliation by officers or other prisoners.

The state has already shelled out money relating to the now-discontinued policy of housing juveniles with adults.

Last year, the state paid a $350,000 settlement to eight juveniles who accused the state of punishing them for challenging that policy. Retaliation included long periods of isolation, destroying property, false misconduct tickets, excessive room searches, verbal threats and disclosing their names within the prison system, “making them more vulnerable to abuse.”