On October 15, 2013, seven Michigan prisoners under the age of 18 but confined in adult correctional institutions filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan. The plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. §1983 and 18 U.S.C. § 1591 against the Michigan Department of Corrections, the Governor of Michigan, and a number of named correctional officers and administrators. Represented by private counsel, the plaintiffs alleged that they were sexually assaulted or harassed by adult prisoners and guards while confined in adult correctional institutions run by the Michigan Department of Corrections. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that the policy and practice of placing juveniles in adult prisons without taking adequate steps to protect them from known harm constituted deliberate indifference to their safety in violation of rights guaranteed by the Eighth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, and various international treaties. The plaintiffs sought injunctive and declaratory relief as well as monetary damages.

In addition to this suit, the plaintiffs also filed a suit arising out of the occurrence alleged in the Michigan Circuit Court for the County of Washtenaw. That suit is available here.

On February 28, 2014, the State moved for summary judgment, claiming that minor prisoners were no longer housed with adults and that adult housing was physically separate from housing for minor prisoners. On May 28, 2014, District Court Judge Robert H. Cleland granted in part and denied in part that motion. His opinion held that the plaintiffs did have standing, despite no longer being underage, as standing is determined at the time the complaint is filed. Furthermore, the court held that, although the defendants had abandoned the practice of housing minors with adults, the fact remained that the practice was still permissible pursuant to state law, and, as such, subject to restart. However, the court did grant summary judgment on the plaintiffs' claims under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and customary international law. The court dismissed these claims because none of the treaties created an independently enforceable right and because there was no peremptory norm of international law against housing youth and adults together in correctional institutions. 2014 WL 2207136 (E.D. Mich. May 28, 2014).

In May 2015, the defendants moved for summary judgment on the plaintiffs' remaining claims for a failure to exhaust administrative remedies. On February 8, 2016, the court granted in part and denied in part the defendants' motion for summary judgment. The court granted summary judgment for the claims by all of the named plaintiffs except for John Doe 3 who did exhaust his administrative remedies. 2016 WL 465496 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 8, 2016).

The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on Mar. 15, 2016, adding five new John Doe plaintiffs.

Discovery and litigation proceeded for the next several months. The court granted in part and denied in part summary judgment on March 14, 2017 as to four of the newly added John Doe plaintiffs. The court granted summary judgment against 3 John Doe plaintiffs on the basis that they did not exhaust their administrative remedies and had no triable reason for failing to do so. The fourth John Doe plaintiff had not exhausted administrative remedies either, but the court determined that there was a triable issue of fact as to whether or not threats prevented John Doe from so doing.

Plaintiffs reintroduced two John Doe plaintiffs on grounds of exhaustion and on May 8, 2017 Judge Robert Cleland permitted consolidation. The plaintiffs then attempted to apply a single John Doe exhaustion to the entire class. However, on February 21, 2018 Judge Cleland held that it was not a settled matter of fact that any individual plaintiff had fully satisfied their exhaustion requirement.

The case is ongoing.

Richard Jolly - 11/05/2014
Jessica Kincaid - 02/26/2016
Virginia Weeks - 09/14/2017


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