Victory in Federal Court: Sheriff Tom Dart Ordered to Improve COVID-19 Protections in Cook County Jail

Criminal Justice ,

This morning, Federal Judge Matthew Kennelly issued a court order that extends federal court oversight of the Cook County Jail, requiring Sheriff Tom Dart to make desperately needed changes to the conditions inside and decrease the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus. Chicago Appleseed has provided daily technical assistance to the legal team from Loevy and Loevy and the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University throughout this lawsuit (Mays et al. v. Dart) and will continue to advocate for more releases of pretrial detainees and safer conditions in the jail, as the crisis continues and after.

Today’s order is huge victory for the people living at Cook County Jail—many of whom participated actively in the case by providing detailed declarations about conditions through a hotline facilitated by the Chicago Community Bond Fund. The reports from inside made clear that many people with flu-like symptoms were still sleeping in large dormitory units and were not being tested for COVID-19, unmasking concerns about the quality of data being released from the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.

The Mays et al. v. Dart order extends the existing Temporary Restraining Order into a more permanent Preliminary Injunction, imposing a number of major requirements on the Jail, such as the continued requirement to provide soap, hand sanitizer, cleaning supplies, and face masks to jail residents and improve cleaning of public areas, bathrooms, and showers. The most important requirements are related to social distancing and testing, and are in direct response to many of Sheriff Dart’s claims that the situation in the jail was “under control” – even while incarcerated people, medical experts, and Sheriff Dart’s own staff insisted that conditions were still unsafe:

  1. All incarcerated people who have not yet been exposed to the virus must be housed in single cells. Although Sheriff Dart has publicly claimed for weeks that all or almost all incarcerated people were being housed in single cells, his office admitted during this litigation that approximately 1,000 people—almost a quarter of the jail population—have remained in dormitory units. Even more people remained double-celled. Even more concerningly, many of the dormitory units are in the infirmary and residential treatment areas of the jail, where some of the jail’s most medically vulnerable detainees live. As we all now know: There is no way to create meaningful social distancing or hygiene measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 in a dormitory.
  2. Sheriff Dart must appropriately test all incarcerated people who show flu-like symptoms or have been in contact with someone who is COVID-19 positive. We now know that the amount of testing that Sheriff Dart has done has been extremely low; as of this weekend, Sheriff Dart has only tested 664 people – only about 15% of the current jail population. Incarcerated people continue to report that the sounds of coughs are audible in non-quarantined dormitories, and that they have requested testing and have not had access to it.

The findings of the Federal Court make clear that not only are conditions dire within the jail, but also that Sheriff Dart’s has not been fully candid with the public about how many people are sick within his jail or how he is implementing social distancing. The federal court’s supervision will ensure that the public rightfully has access to accurate, complete information about the scale of the infection in the Cook County jail and can respond appropriately.

Everything is not “under control” in the jail, but we hope it will be soon thanks to this oversight and renewed efforts by Circuit Court stakeholders to conduct reviews of many people as possible under the law. Everyone deserves to have their custody reevaluated in light of COVID-19 and the court’s closure. Every single person inside of Cook County Jail must be given a court date very soon (within the next month)—which they should be present for, either in person or by video—that will allow a judge to assess their current custody situation, rule on individualized bond motions, and remove any obstacles to release (such as probation or pretrial warrants). Until that happens, the court’s responsibility to protect those in custody is nowhere near fulfilled.

For more from Sarah Staudt, Senior Policy Analyst & Staff Attorney, visit www.ChicagoAppleseed.org/Our-Blog/Author/SStaudt/.