A federal judge Monday ordered Fulton County’s sheriff and the chairman of the Board of Commissioners to appear in court and argue why he should not find them in contempt for violating an 8-year-old agreement to improve jail conditions.
Judge Thomas W. Thrash dismissed all the arguments attorneys for Sheriff Ted Jackson and the county had made as to why they should not be sanctioned.
A lawsuit was filed in 2004 claiming the jail was crowded, dirty, dangerous and chronically short-staffed, and it was resolved in early 2006 with a consent order that called for major renovations, set a cap on population and required minimum staffing. The consent order has so far cost Fulton County taxpayers $150 million.
The jail expert overseeing progress for the federal court has said the county and the sheriff constantly fail to meet the minimum requirements.
So in October, the Southern Center for Human Rights, which filed the suit on behalf of the inmates, asked for a hearing to determine if Jackson and the county are in contempt of the consent order. They wrote that inmates continued to roam freely within the cellblocks because the locks don’t work, and hundreds of inmates continue to sleep on the floors in common areas because there aren’t enough beds.
Lawyers for the sheriff and the county, in their argument against a contempt hearing, wrote that Fulton could not be held responsible for inmates getting out of their cells because the inmates themselves had damaged the locks. Earlier this year, the jail began replacing 1,400 cell-door locks that inmates could easily circumvent, at a cost of $4.8 million.
“Even assuming it was the acts of certain class members [inmates] that rendered the locks inoperable, the unclean hands of some class members does not justify denying relief” to all inmates, Thrash wrote in his order, setting a hearing for sometime in the near future.
The sheriff also argued he could not be held responsible for inmates sleeping on the floors, because county commissioners had eliminated funding for renting beds in other jails. In August, commissioners rolled back on that decision somewhat, voting to spend $111,750 a month to rent 285 to 325 beds in the Union City Jail to house female inmates. There still have not been enough beds for male inmates, however, while some cell blocks were emptied so workers could replace locks.
The commissioners’ lawyer said the county cannot be held responsible for some of the violations the Southern Center noted because those issues “do not unambiguously apply to them.”
Thrash wrote that the inmates’ lawyers had “clearly stated a case for non-compliance” with the 2006 consent order. He said they showed inmates were sleeping on the floor, that the population regularly exceeds the 2,500 inmate cap and it is routinely under-staffed.
About the Author
